This just in: Secret missions are cool.
I've never understood people who don't live fantasy lives. Mine are innumerable. Sometimes I'm Ophelia, tossing out flowers. Sometimes I'm Harry Potter, catching the snitch. Sometimes I'm Aeris, praying for the environment. Sometimes I'm a TaruTaru, looking up at a Crawler. Sometimes I'm Morpheus, creating dreams. The list goes on and on. People roll their eyes, call me a geek, and ask why I don't live in the Real World.
What is the Real World? The office? The bills? The errands? Er... who wants that stuff? Not to discount their importance. We need the office and the bills and the errands to keep everything going. But who goes home after a hard day, sits in front of dinner, looks at a nice TV show coming on, smiles at his wife, and says, "Damnit. I'd give anything to spend another ten hours at work right now"?
"What is a man, If his chief good and market of his time Be but to sleep and feed?" (Hamlet)
I work to get enough money to have both of my worlds paid for. World #1: The Real World. My insurance, my rent, my groceries, my phone, etc. World #2: My World. My movies, my books, my CDs, my video games, etc.
So, yeah. I live in the Real World. But the Real World only facilitates My World. Isn't that the point? Shouldn't we, whenever possible, enjoy ourselves?
In my opinion, that's the meaning of life. Have fun. Make friends, love your family, play, explore, pretend.
Today I'm in My World again, and I'm on a secret mission from Perplex City. It's my job to leave puzzle cards in interesting places so that we can recruit more players. Over the next week or two, random people are going to stumble on the cards I've placed, and they'll be directed to a game. They'll be welcomed into a whole new community of gamers. It's like I'm leaving little arrows on the ground with signs that read: Fun This Way.
I started this morning. Simple as it was, the act of dropping my first anonymous clue by the breakroom microwave gave me a little thrill. An even greater thrill came over me when I checked back in two and a half hours to see the card was gone! Score! One potential player recruited!
I imagined who might be hidden behind his or her computer, solving the puzzle. He or she would figure it out, smile at the few minutes of fun the card provided, and then quietly reach for the keyboard.
www *look around to be sure nobody's watching* .perplex *double-check the card* city.com *look around again* GO.
Then the real fun would begin.
It was time for me to place another card. Surely the computer lab was great place to find interested players. On my break, I hurried off to the building I'd entered only once before in the three years I've worked here. Once I arrived, though, I encountered a problem.
I'm a girl.
As un-PC as it sounds, the female population of most computer labs isn't that great. I stuck out like a mechanic on a playground. Not only that, but it's a bit difficult to wander alone into a computer lab with no evident purpose, and, unwatched, place a mysterious card on a keyboard. In fact, I found myself surrounded by open spaces with many PCs well out of arm's reach. Every time I'd creep into a room, one of the guys behind a monitor would pop his head up to watch me, as if to say, "We know you couldn't possibly know how to work a computer, lass. Need some help?"
After loitering for far too long, I gave up and returned to work, resolute that I'd try again later in the evening.
On the way back, I managed to drop off three more cards in other strategic places.
All in all, I must say ARGs provide more fun than most people imagine. It's the promise of something exciting and different every day. When you never know what fun thing might happen around the next corner, you're always excited to find out. Might be nothing. But who's to say? There might be a bit of fun waiting.
So here I am. On a mission. Exploring my environment. Enjoying My World.
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