I was supposed to pick up my husband at a game store after a “Magic: The Gathering” tournament. Unfortunately, the competition ran long, and due to some confusion with the messaging, I didn’t get the notice until I had already arrived to pick him up and learned it would be another thirty minutes to an hour before he was done. I had my ten-month-old daughter with me.

The game store also does game nights where anyone can come in to play games, so the store was filled with people playing all kinds of board games that evening. In particular, there were three just sitting down at a table before me: a husband and wife and a third man.

Man: “We’re just starting a game that’s supposed to only be thirty minutes long, if you want to join us while you wait.”

Me: “Oh, thanks, but I don’t know the rules.”

Man: “It’s new to all of us, so you could learn with us.”

Me: “That’s a tempting offer, but I doubt [Daughter] would let me sit still that long.”

Wife: “Oh, I don’t think that would be a problem.”

The wife was grinning at her husband as she said this as if it were some inside joke.

Husband: “It would be fine if you just didn’t want to join us, but if you did, we wouldn’t mind your joining. We would all understand if you were a bit distracted because of your daughter; it wouldn’t be a problem.”

Man: “Worse case, if she gets really fussy, you could just drop out; the game still works with three players if you have to leave early.”

Me: “Okay, if you’re sure you don’t mind, I’ll take you up on that, though I doubt she’ll let me finish a game.”

Wife: “Please, we’d love to have you. Maybe I’ll have a better chance of winning now.”

At this, [Man] scooted over one seat, allowing me to sit down so my daughter’s stroller could sit against the empty side of the table where I could reach her. [Wife] was sitting opposite from me, and thus on the other side of my stroller. She turned to her husband and said in an amused-sounding voice:

Wife: “So, I’m guessing we’re trading seats, huh?”

Husband: *To me* “Would you mind if I played a little with your daughter in the stroller?”

Me: “Um, no, I guess not.”

Wife: “Seat swap it is. My master plan to defeat you all has begun!”

My daughter does NOT like being left alone in her stroller; I was certain I would get at best ten minutes before she was too fussy. What I hadn’t anticipated was [Husband] spending the entire game playing with her. Peekaboo, itsy-bitsy spider, tickling, you name it, he did all the baby classics, and my daughter was giggling along with every moment of it.

He seemed to treat the game as secondary to playing with my daughter. He ignored the game board until his turn, and then he would quickly glance at the board and make his play so that each of his turns was as long or slightly shorter than the turns of those who were paying attention to the game. For her part, my daughter seemed a little offended that her new playmate kept disappearing to take a turn every few minutes, but eventually, she caught on that he would be back to play with her soon enough and so tolerated the turn breaks.

The embarrassing part was that, despite his seeming to treat our board game as an afterthought, [Husband] still beat the three of us by a decent margin.

Wife: “Oh, come on! I go out of the way to set up the perfect distraction for you, and you still beat us! You really should let your poor wife win a game one of these days just for the novelty of it, you know!”

It seems [Husband] adored kids and volunteered with them, was a godfather, and was quite eager to start trying for their own kids in a year. Apparently, everyone at the table except me already anticipated that he would spend the entire game playing with and distracting my daughter for me.

Though, it is fairly embarrassing that even distracted he trounced the three of us.

CONTENT WARNING: Child Abuse

I was at a gaming retailer a few days ago to see if they had anything new in the DS cartridges I could trade for. I found something I wanted, but the employees were in the back doing something, so I started looking at the games on the walls. Then, this elderly couple came in.

Note: I wear a lot of black, so I do occasionally get mistaken as a worker in certain places.

This couple was pretty clearly out of their depth looking around. They spotted me and came over with the usual, “Excuse me, honey.”

And they proceeded to tell me their story.

Couple: “We just got custody of our three grandkids from our daughter’s ex, who is abusive. Our daughter passed away. During the proceedings, her ex destroyed the kids’ game system and all their games in a fit of rage, so as a welcome home present, we want to get them a whole new system and set them up with games.”

Yeah, I was on board after that. Being a huge nerd, I started explaining the different systems, how they could go online and play with others on certain ones, and what kind of games would be good for kids their age — seven to thirteen or so.

It took around ten minutes. They were really nice and appreciated the help, and when they got to the front and the manager came out from the back to ring them up, they complimented him on having such a nice employee.

He looked at me in confusion.

Manager: *To the couple* “She doesn’t work here.”

My roommate and I play an online open-world survival game on Xbox. One player hosts a server and invites other players. The game has amazing building mechanics, so we spend a lot of our time constructing massive and ambitious forts, castles, cities, etc.

My roommate discovers that there is a way to use cheats to build without any resources. This cuts the building time to a tenth of what it would usually take. Unfortunately, only the host of the server can use the cheats, so I have to continue building the old fashion way: by running back and forth to grab materials.

One day, we are creating this massive castle. Two hours in, we update each other on our progress.

Roommate: “Yeah, and look here! I got the whole garden leading up to the fortified gate. That leads to the bridge that crosses the moat. And that leads to the large doors of the front of the castle! I even got a massive throne room with a giant feast table. I’m working on the towers now leading up to my lord’s chambers! What have you got?”

Me: “Oh, cool… I, uh… I built a door… That won’t close all the way…”

Roommate: *Awkward pause* “Great. That can be your entrance. Peasant!”

I work in customer service for an online video game that is rated Mature for violence and language. A caller is having an issue with their account, and I think I’ve found the issue.

Me: “Okay, it looks like when you signed up for the expansion, you put in the wrong date of birth for the security question.”

Customer: “Oh, yeah, I remember now. I lied about my age when I first signed up. That’s why my date of birth doesn’t match.”

Me: “You do realize that lying about your age goes against our terms and conditions?”

Customer: “Well, I’m legal now!”

Me: “I’ll update the date of birth on your account, but I’ll also need to inform my manager and put a note on your account.”

Customer: “Do what you need to do. It’s not like my mom can put me in timeout at this point.”

Me: “Yes, but your account could be closed by us.”

Customer: “Ugh… couldn’t you just ground me instead and tell me to ‘think about what I’ve done’?”

The caller did have a point; we really didn’t have any block for under-eighteens other than entering the date of birth, which we had no way of verifying. But admitting you did that before so brazenly — that was a new one for me.

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.”