Whose bright idea was this anyway?

     Feeling a great deal sheepish after making my character, I closed out the game, looked at Jeremy and said, "Well. That's it for now. I think I'll do my first quest another time."
     "Ok," He said. "Though you could just get it over with now."
     "Noooo. That's ok. I'm good."
     "Com'mon, it won't be so bad. The first quest is like the tutorial for the game," He lied. "It kind of walks you through what you have to do."
    I sighed, knowing I probably should just do the first quest. I anticipated this moment about as much as I look forward to a ripping a band-aid off a wound and pulling off half my leg hair along with it.  "Fine," I said loading the game back up.  "Now what?"
      "See these people with a ring over their head? You want to talk to them. They have the quests you need to accomplish"  Clumsily using the keys to maneuver Shammel, I made him wander over to the person with the 'ring' over her head and stood there waiting for something to happen. Jeremy said nothing while the characters moved and swayed on the screen.  Ok, I thought to myself, I guess he expects me to figure this out on my own. I typed into the chat screen, "Talk"  Nothing happened. So I tried, "Say Hello."  Still nothing.  Refusing to look at Jeremy, knowing, just knowing his eyes would be dancing with laughter, I clicked on the character.  Still nothing.
     "Try double clicking on her."
     "Ah, ok."

     I double-clicked on the hobbit, learned I was supposed to save three other hobbits, and in the meantime, kill lots of bad guys. Ok, maybe not lots. I think there were six, or maybe eight.  Either way, it felt like a lot.  The first bad guy rushed towards me, immediately attacking me. I sat helpless with my left hand fingers on the keyboard and the right poised over the mouse while Shammel's life began ebbing away with each blow from the villain.  I could see Shammel had a knife in his hand, but I had no clue what to do.  "Click on the bad guy to stab him with your knife," Jeremy said dryly.

    "OH!" clicking furiously, I managed to defeat the first bad guy.  I freed a hobbit, and took a deep breath.  This is the epitome of stress. Really, why do people like PLAYING these kinds of games. This is not escape. This is a different sort of hell, one where I'm destined to be stressed out in real life as well as in the virtual world!

    The next bad guy raced towards me, and I squealed. Yes. I did. I squealed, and started clicking even more rapidly than before.  After all, it worked to kill the first guy, so surely this was what I had to do.  Defeating three or four bad guys in such a manner, I was worn out. I wondered how my poor mouse was going to hold up if I had to click like a madwoman for every villain I chanced to encounter. This was only level one! The game was SURE to become increasingly more difficult!

    Having determined to let me "learn" the game on my own, Jeremy sat by my side relatively quiet, until he just couldn't take it any longer.  "Um, You're a hunter," He said.
    "Yeah, so?"
     "Why did you want to be a hunter?"
     "So I could have a bow and arrows."
     "So, use them, then you don't have to wait for the bad guy to practically be on top of you. You can shoot him from afar."  
     Shoot the bad guys from afar? That sounded pretty good. "How on earth do I get my bow?"
     "You click on this here." Jeremy selected an icon at the bottom of the screen, "And look. You're armed with your bow. Now, take aim and fire," He said as the next bad guys tried to blitz me.  I clicked a little less frantically, though feeling an equal amount of stress, using way too many arrows to kill low-level villains.  I really hope I have unlimited arrows, though somehow I doubt it. Managing to get the hobbits free, I found myself in a village, my first quest completed.  I laid my head on the office desk and took some deep cleansing breaths.

      "Great Job," Jeremy said enthusiastic. "That wasn't so bad, now was it? And look, you're already half-way to level two. See that? Would you like to do another quest?" I looked at him like he had grown two heads. "I guess I'll take that as a no. Well, see here," He persisted on with his chatter, "More people with rings, more quests. You've got a whole village to explore."
    Goodie,  I thought sarcastically, a whole village to explore.
    "Just let me know when you're ready to do another quest."
   How about never?

Later, I over-heard Jeremy recounting my first experience with his beloved online game.  "She's a hunter, and she's killing the bad-guys with a knife!" He started to laugh, shaking his head.  "A KNIFE!?" 

Go ahead and laugh, buddy. You've got a whole scarf yet to crochet. Just go ahead and laugh.