Filed under: A Bit Of Inspiration, Apathy, Attitude & Aptitude, Content, Context, Culture, Dad, Daddyhood, Emotion, Family, Fatherhood, Home, Jill, Love, Mum, Mum & Dad, My Fatherhood, Otis, Rosie
I had a blessed childhood.
I had unconditional love … continuous support and a caring, family home.
But I never got Electronic Battleships.
Hell, I didn’t even get to play shitty paper battleships.
And frankly, I didn’t care except for the fact when I was a kid, the idea of an ‘electronic’ version of anything was cool so I wanted it.
Then there were the sounds it made.
Or at least the sounds it made on the TV ad.
Holy mother of god. This was 25th century technology.
Kinda.
But did I get it?
Did I hell.
Oh don’t get me wrong, I was spoilt over the years with a lot of electronic stuff …
Blip. Demon Driver. Astro Wars. Philips G7000. Game and Watch. Merlin. Tin Can Alley … which was the most rubbish thing ever made.
But no Electronic Battleship.
And the only reason I was able to deal with it is because I never really liked board games and my Dad hated them even more … so even if that wasn’t the case, only my Mum would be available to be an opponent and war was not something she rightfully wanted to encourage.
For 52 years I lived perfectly well without having Battleships in my life until one day I came home and found Otis had got a set and wanted to play.
Not Electronic Battleships [still being denied all these years later] but battleships all the same.
So we sat down at the table … facing each other and prepared to unleash naval hell on one another.
I should point out Otis had never played Battleships before.
I should also point out he’s 7 years old.
So you’ll understand why my view of Battleship has evolved from indifference to hate because 37 minutes after commencing our game, my son had blasted all of my stupid, crappy, cowardly ships out the water.
Crap game anyway.