The Moments at the Game Table Are Not Always Game Moments
At the last game that I played in I was introduced to the GM’s new kitten. Let me explain.
About fifteen minutes after taking my seat at the table I screamed like a virgin on prom night. The kitten was under the table and jumped onto my leg. Two front paws worth of tiny razor like claws passed effortlessly through my jeans and hooked into the flesh of my knee.
In a flash of pain and rage I felt my left fist cock back. I was going to kill something, not in the game but for real. Then I saw that ever so cute little kitten face with its big eyes looking up at me as if to say “Hi! Can we be friends! I’m so tiny and frail. Please be my friend!”
In retrospect I should have swung at it.
“Get it off!” I cried out.
The GM and another player looked at me like I had just burst into flames. I shook my leg fiercely. That was a bad idea as the kitten went into clutch-with-all-of-its-might mode and dug its claws deeper into me.
“GET IT OFF!” I cried out even louder.
The whole time I and the kitten have our eyes locked on each other. The kitten is terrified and for some stupid reason I am incapable of simply brushing the kitten off of my leg. My brain is unable to rationalize how I can simply remove the kitten without killing the kitten in a fit of lizard brain berserker force. My six foot three inch two-hundred-twenty pound frame froze as this three pounds of feral ninja cuteness concealing lethal shivs of climbing clutched at my leg. Only when the GM went to grab the kitten did it jump off and then cower in the corner out of fright.
The GM took the kitten to another room, and I went to the bathroom. My leg was burning. I pulled my jeans down (not a single mark on them by the way) and inspected my knee. Eight large welts were forming as some sort of allergic reaction to the eight tiny puncture marks that were now bleeding ever so slightly.
I washed the welts off, pulled up my jeans, and returned to the game table. We all laughed about the event, and I spent the next hour scratching at my knee through my jeans as it itched something fierce. We played a game of Savage Worlds and of course their were jokes like “Zombies I can handle, but I sure hope there aren’t any kittens!”
MMORPGs have nothing on this type of interaction. These goofy and funny moments that you just stumble into while socializing are priceless. These are the kinds of moments that you cannot have without your friends at the game table.
Plus a kitten.
*chuckles
Moments like that are memorable and, sometimes, bitter-sweet. You really can’t get those from playing MMORPGs.
Great post, Patrick!
Why do I get the feeling 2011 is the Year of Forces-Sinister?!?
jlcsusara – For 2011 I am focused on delivering content. Good, bad, whatever. My whole goal for the year is to produce materials and gather feedback from others regarding those materials. The more feedback I get the better.