I work in a huge, famous toy store in London. I am assisting customers on the floor near our rather sizeable collection of puzzles.

Customer: “What are these?”

Me: “Those are puzzles.”

Customer: “Are they board games?”

Me: “No, they’re puzzles. You put the pieces together to build up the picture on the box.”

Customer: “I don’t understand.”

I pick up a box to demonstrate.

Me: “The picture on the front of this box has been split into a thousand pieces that connect together. You rebuild the picture by figuring out how the pieces come together. It can be very therapeutic.”

Customer: “So, it’s like sudoku?”

Me: “What? No, sir. Here, one of these boxes isn’t sealed. Let me show you.”

I open the box and show him the plastic bag inside containing all the pieces.

Customer: “So, it is like sudoku! You lied to me.”

Me: “Sir, sudoku is a Japanese number puzzle. This is just a picture puzzle.”

Customer: “Well, I call these sudokus.”

Me: “Do you want one, sir?”

Customer: “Oh, no, thanks. They’re way too difficult for me.”

Me: *Under my breath* “Shocking.”

I just turned fourteen, and as a surprise, my family is taking me to London. With a certain anticipated game coming out on May 12, I am trying to get 100% on its predecessor before it releases, so I bring my Switch. 

The plane is about to take off, and I have settled into my seat with my sister sitting in the middle reading. My parents are sitting in the front, and with the way the seats are set up, there are large gaps between them. I realize a younger child — around seven or eight — is watching me through the gaps. I smile at him, but his face is transfixed on the screen, so I go back to playing.

Mid-take off, the child taps my shoulder, looking at me excitedly.

Child: “You play [Game], too?”

Me: “Uh, yeah.”

The child starts excitedly talking about the game, chatting about everything he has done. I learn that he used to go over to his best friend’s house all the time, but they moved shortly after he won, and how annoyed he is that he won’t be able to play its sequel until Christmas.

He quiets down, and I return to my gaming session. My sister has now passed out.

I set my Switch down inside my bag so as not to wake her, and I instead browse some of the books I brought. My backpack is an older one from school and has a padded strapped area where you would normally put your computer or tablet. The strap has broken off, so we’ve added a knot-type thing that is notoriously hard to open. It’s extra padded, so I place my Switch in there and go about my business.

You can probably guess what’s coming.

I feel my backpack getting whisked out from under my feet, and I spin around to try to find where it went. A middle-aged woman is angrily trying to rip open the strap, while the child is glued to the TVs in the seats.

Me: “What the h***?”

The woman ignores me, so I reach through and grab my backpack.

Woman: “HELP! THIS LADY IS TRYING TO STEAL MY BACKPACK!”

A flight attendant comes over. My sister is wide awake and frowning.

The flight attendant takes one look at the woman angrily wrenching the strap, the lavender purple backpack with hand sanitizer keychains and a hooked-on Squishmallow, and me trying to grab my bag back.

Me: “That’s my bag! She’s trying to steal my Switch!”

The woman has now pulled out a large pair of plastic scissors, the type you would give to a young kid doing a craft project. The flight attendant starts blowing a whistle, getting everyone’s attention.

Woman: “STOP THAT! YOU’RE SCARING [CHILD]!”

The child in question was looking defeated and annoyed if anything.

Multiple larger staff members came over and restrained the woman for having a weapon, though sadly no duct tape. We landed, and police quickly arrived to escort her off the plane, while she was screaming about how “her dear baby needs his console” and still pulling my bag with her.

It took a good twenty minutes to get it back, but luckily, nothing was damaged. A man and a woman arrived with another young boy in tow, and the child from the plane ran over with a resounding call of, “DAD!”

Turns out the “best friend” was actually his stepbrother. The dad had moved away with his family because the mom was stalking him after she cheated and they divorced. They had joint custody, but this was apparently the mother’s last chance, and she was trying to leave for a vacation — which she wasn’t allowed to do with the child — probably so she could escape since she was on her last leg.

My sister ended up playing with them while we got it sorted out, and my mom and the child’s stepmom are now keeping in touch for playdate reasons. The father now has full custody.

My roommate is playing an RPG, and I am sitting on the couch watching him. He gets a quest that requires him to go from the city he’s in to a neighbouring area.

Me: “Oh, there’s a fast-travel point at the city gates.”

Roommate: “Nah, I’ll walk. I could use the exer… perience.”

I’m the author of this story, and I’ve been living in Japan and teaching English for over eight years now.

For several reasons, I have a strict no-children policy when it comes to my students, but occasionally, I can be persuaded to waive it — perks of being a private tutor! In one case, I end up teaching a Japanese boy, beginning when he is eleven. 

I have very little faith in English-language textbooks since they’re either riddled with mistakes or far too stilted to be “natural” English. Instead, I make my own materials or use flashcards, and my lessons tend to be less structured than in a classroom. For example, if a student asks me to explain a grammar point, I’ll happily spend most of the lesson on that instead of sticking to the plan.

The parents of this particular boy are absolutely wonderful; they pay very well, they provide me with a drink when I come to their home for the lesson, and best of all, they stay out of my way and let me get on with teaching how I like. 

That said, I’m at a bit of a loss when it comes to teaching this boy, as all my students and materials are adult-based. He adores video games, however, so I hit upon a brainwave: the family has a laptop, I have a Steam account, and I also have a collection of old 1990s LucasArts games on there. 

Bingo! I talk to his parents and explain that although the learning curve is going to be very steep, their son will learn natural English in a fun way. They’re all for it, so I get their permission to install Steam and download “The Secret Of Monkey Island” — think “Pirates Of The Caribbean”, to the point that many game fans believe that the movie was inspired by this game series — and off we go! 

And it works brilliantly. For those not in the know, LucasArts has a series of point-and-click adventure games such as the “Monkey Island” series where you click on a verb — “Open”, “Close”, “Pick Up”, “Talk To”, etc. — and then on the object you want to interact with. Not only does this give my student nine useful verbs right from the get-go, but it also gets him into building simple sentences — “Pick Up Mug”, “Give X to Y”, and so on. If I use the old-style version of the games, I can also pause when the subtitles are on the screen so we can discuss the grammar, and later games in the series feature voice-acting, which helps build his listening skills.

Given it’s aimed at a native-speaking market, I’m willing to translate most of the English into Japanese for him, but only after he makes an attempt to do so himself. He’s invested in the game, so he’s keen to do so, but he obviously struggles in the beginning.

One segment of the game involves sword-fighting with pirates. Basically, this involves fighting a lot of pirates so you can learn insults and then use those insults on other pirates so they can teach you the correct response. The insults themselves obviously aren’t worth remembering, but they use a lot of excellent grammar points, so I do insist upon [Student] translating them. For example, “I’m glad to hear you attended your family reunion” teaches “glad to [verb]”, “happy to [verb]”, “sorry to [verb]”, etc. 

At the end of one lesson, we’ve run a little over the usual hour, which I don’t charge extra for, since I’m having a blast revisiting my childhood. [Student]’s having a problem with the translation of one particular in-game insult, and I’ve already made up my mind that this will be the last sword fight of the lesson.

Me: “Okay. So, you know ‘handkerchief’.”

Student: “Yes… but not this word.”

Me: “That’s okay. You can look it up in your dictionary.”

Normally, I discourage his use of the dictionary, as I want to encourage him to think and expand his vocabulary by using other words that mean the same thing, but I’m honestly not sure how to get this word across considering his English is still rather limited at this point.

[Student] begins eagerly searching in his electronic dictionary, and [Student]’s mom enters the room. She always does so very quietly and never disturbs the lesson but just goes right to work doing something in the kitchen.

I speak quietly in Japanese to [Student]’s mom.

Me: “Hi. It’s okay; we’re just finishing up.”

Two seconds later, [Student] finds the word and puzzles over the translation for a few moments, and then his whole face lights up in pure delight.

Student: *Loudly, in very excited Japanese* “Sensei, I’ve got it! I understand! The word was ‘blood’, so the sentence is, ‘My handkerchief will mop up your blood!’”

[Student]’s mom never commented or raised so much as an eyebrow, but I couldn’t help wondering what she must have thought of that particular lesson!

For the curious among you, I kept using this teaching technique until we’d completed the first three games in the series. By the end of “Monkey Island 3”, [Student] understood 80% to 90% of what was being said and could speak reasonably fluently with the native teachers in English class, along with being able to follow English-language news programs on TV.

However, at that point, he’d had enough of video games, so we moved on to “Asterix” (a comic book series, which was a dismal failure; I really should have known better) followed by “Tintin”, which turned out to be such a roaring success that his mother actually bought the albums from me so [Student] could reread them!

Related:
Ah, The Delightful Quirks Of Gender
Ah, The Delightful Quirks Of Language

At my town pool, they have three pools. There is the Swimming Pool, which is for lap swimming, water polo, and all those games. The second, known as the Baby Pool, is the smallest. Since you have to be at least four years old to go into the Swimming Pool, the toddlers are allowed to play in the small, easily watchable Baby Pool.

The final pool — the Splash Pool — is where this situation went down. This pool is full of cool blue and white structures that spray out water. It is the only pool that accepts water gun use, although there is “Peace Time” twice per day: Toddler Time and the first hour of opening. The first hour of opening is self-explanatory, but Toddler Time is when parents can allow their little ones to play without the fear of them being caught in the crossfire.

During wars, there are typically two “Clans” who took up territory and roleplay total destruction. My little brother and I usually get a good set of teammates due to the fact that we always carry big double-barreled-shotgun-like sprayers. On the day of this encounter, my friend was with us, using a big Super Soaker AR with multiple firing types. We had another teammate who only had a basic pistol, but I had played with him before and he had good tactics.

On the other Clan were two kids [Kid #1] and [Kid #2] with some pretty cool Super Soakers. They needed some more people, so when [Kid #3] and [Kid #4] came from the Swimming Pool, they handed them some basic foam push guns. Due to their soft padding, they were also used as batons for close-quarters combat, and it was always a good complimentary weapon when used correctly. Of course, with our pistol-wielding clansmen, we had ditched the batons. The war started, and almost immediately [Kid #3] and [Kid #4] charged at us with their guns held baton-style. [Kid #4] was shot in the face and started screaming. His friend got hit as well and stopped, trying to call a timeout. Their teammate came from behind them, confused.

Kid #4: “WHO SHOT ME?”

Friend: “Me. Why’d you call a timeout?”

Kid #3: “BECAUSE YOU SHOT MY FRIEND IN THE FACE!”

Little Brother: “Why wasn’t he wearing goggles? It’s his fault if he wasn’t.”

Kid #4: “SHUT UP! YOU GUYS ARE STUPID LITTLE PIECES OF S*** WITH YOUR STUPID GUNS!”

[Kid #4] started hitting my brother with his gun, and [Kid #1] and [Kid #2] yanked his and [Kid #3]’s guns away.

Kid #1: “You guys are terrible at the game! Go away!”

Kid #2: “You guys are also mean. We don’t want babies.”

[Kid #4] and [Kid #3] left the pool, [Kid #4] still crying, and they walked back toward the Swimming Pool. We started setting up a game with three teams of two, but before we could start playing, we heard a woman yelling at us. We looked in the direction of the voice to see a woman with [Kid #3] and [Kid #4] in tow. It was [Kid #3]’s mom.

Mom: “WHO HURT MY SON AND HIS FRIEND?!”

Me: “No one! They should have been wearing goggles if they didn’t want to get hit in the face!”

Mom: “What do you mean?! Why would my son be hit in the first place?!”

Me: “We were playing with our water guns. They were on a team and were shot. That’s the point of the game.”

Kid #3: “No! He’s lying! They shot us when we were minding our own business!”

Kid #1: “Hey, that’s not true! You guys were f—”

Mom: “You think it’s funny to attack my son?! Give me your weapon, now!”

She tried grabbing for my gun, and [Little Brother] just sprayed her.

Mom: “YOU BRAT! DON’T TOUCH ME!”

Me: “Stay back!”

I started thinking of the worst thing I could say and found a good word.

Me: “Stay back, b****!”

Mom: “EXCUSE ME?! THAT’S IT! WHERE ARE YOUR PARENTS?!”

Me: “They aren’t here. They dropped us off! Leave us be, or I’ll spray you again!”

Mom: “Wow! Your parents aren’t here to chaperone in a pool! That’s very dangerous. I will call the police because I guess you are being neglected by them!”

She thought she had won, and she started to walk away. [Friend] and I, figuring this was over, started playing Rock Paper Scissors. [Mom] looked over her shoulder and saw us.

Mom: “What are you doing?!”

Friend: “Playing a game.”

Mom: “No! You are insulting me!”

[Mom] started trudging toward us in the water, and [Little Brother] sprayed her again. She got up close to [Little Brother] and started yanking the gun away from him. Some nearby man started screaming at [Mom], telling her to stop. She ignored him until a whistle was blown. Then, she looked at the man. He had his shirt off and was wearing red pants that said “Lifeguard” on them, and he had a whistle in his mouth.

Mom: “HELP ME! THESE VIOLENT CHILDREN ARE ATTACKING ME!”

Lifeguard: “No. They were playing with water guns. Toddler Time was an hour ago, so there is no reason they can’t play. Those boys did agree to play. I’m asking you to leave the pool, now!”

Mom: “NO! THAT’S NOT FAIR!”

The lifeguard walked over to his chair and grabbed a walkie-talkie. He called for pool management staff. A minute later, an employee was there with two other lifeguards, and they forced [Mom], [Kid #3], and [Kid #4] to pick up their items and leave.

We found two new kids to play with us and continued our war until closing time.