Competition

When my brother and I used to play tennis, our games would last hours and hours. We’re both so anti-competitive that we’d each try to let the other twin win. All lobs. No kill shots. I mean, what if there were hurt feelings? How could we survive?

In fact, I’ve gone most of my life not really caring if I won or lost. I’m a people pleaser. I get more joy out of Diana’s brother destroying me at Trivial Pursuit than if I had collected all the little pie thingies myself.

Which brings me to football. Digital football. As you recall, Luca and I negotiated the purchase of the Madden 2020 game a few weeks ago. Luca held up his side of the bargain: picking up Grover’s yard leavings. I’ll admit, I’ve secretly picked up some poop here and there because Luca likes to wait until the yard is brimming with doo doo before he does his job. But it’s working out.

However, I’ve found that this game has released a demon in me. A competitive, obnoxious, jerkface who wants nothing more than to destroy his children.

At the beginning, it was pretty easy. The boys were a little slow on the strategic side of the game, so I would beat them handily. During one game, Elijah accidentally used all his time outs and I let time expire while never losing eye contact. When Luca raged at his losses, I would lecture him about sportsmanship and dared him to get good enough to beat the old man.

Which took about six hours.

Luca now absolutely demolishes me in the game. The scores are embarrassing. 14-48. 7-602. And because I am an adult who knows losing a video game is meaningless, I act like a total baby. I throw controllers. I scream at the screen. I accuse Luca of cheating. I threaten to never play the game again and throw the X-box into the Lake Michigan.

At first, this used to scare/bum Luca out. After my rages, I explained to him that I’m not mad at him, I am mad at myself. And Carson Wentz’s terrible accuracy when scrambling.

Now Luca takes sick pleasure in making his mild mannered, placid father into a raving lunatic. He taunts me. He screams, “Let’s GO!” when he scores, which he knows I hate because it’s what Tom Brady shouts. And worst of all, he patronizingly pats me on the head and murmurs, “Good job, Daddy” when he runs up a 0-364 final.

In order to keep me from having a heart attack, we’ve agreed to adjust our match ups. I always play the best teams in the league and Luca happily chooses the Dolphins to disembowel his old man. But at least the games are close.

I can still beat Eli, though. And that makes me half happy.