I Remember Nothing [29]
Remember that ad, “This is your brain. This is your brain on drugs”? That was me. My brain turned to cheese. I could feel it happening. It was clear that I was becoming more and more scattered, more distracted, more unfocused: I was exhibiting all the symptoms of terminal ADD; I was turning into a teenage boy. I instantly became an expert on how the Internet could alter your brain in a permanent way, and I offered my opinions on this subject at all sorts of places, where, as I recall, no one was particularly interested.
The Scrabble Blitz site was full of other deranged Scrabble Blitzers, who dealt with their addiction by writing comments about it in the Web site chat room during the two-minute break between games, the two-minute break being a perfect time to log off and stop playing Scrabble Blitz but you didn’t because you were totally hooked and besides you were going to play only one more game, or maybe two. The comments consisted of things like: “I’m an addict, lol” and “I can’t stop playing this ha ha.” My contempt for these comments led me to think I was somehow different from the people who wrote them, but the truth is I wasn’t—I was exactly like them except for the lol’s and the ha ha’s, and even I have used an lol and a ha ha from time to time, though not in a chat room, and most of the time, I hope, ironically, but to be perfectly honest, not every time.
The game of Scrabble Blitz eventually became too much for the Web site. Lag was a huge problem. From time to time, the Scrabble Blitz area would shut down for days, and when it returned, so did all the addicts, full of comments about how they had barely withstood life without the game. I began to get carpal tunnel syndrome from playing—I’m not kidding. I realized I was going to have to kick the habit. I thought about kicking the habit. I promised myself I would. After one more game. After one more day. After one more week. And then, one day, out of the blue, I was saved by what’s known in the insurance business as an act of God: Games.com shut down Scrabble Blitz permanently. And that was that. It was gone.
I went back to online Scrabble, a mild and soporific version of the game. I restricted myself to two games a day—no more. I spent several years wandering from one Scrabble Web site to another—there are several—and recently found my way to a place called Scrabulous.com. I’ve been playing on this Web site for just over fifty days—I know because I recently received a congratulatory e-mail from “The Scrabulous Team” on the occasion of my one hundredth game. It crossed my mind when I got the e-mail that even two games a day was too much. But it didn’t stop me from playing: my habit was under control.
But this week, I had a major setback. I went onto the Scrabulous site to play my customary two games, and to my amazement, right there on the entry page, was a chance to play Scrabble Blitz. Only it wasn’t called Scrabble Blitz. It was called Blitz Scrabble. It was back. It was working perfectly. And not only was it back, so were all the people I used to play with, all of them making their sad little jokes about being addicted to the game, followed by lol or ha ha and even an occasional . I decided to play just one game, or maybe two. An hour later, I was still there. My heart was racing. My brain was once again turning to cheese. I was hooked.
It’s now been five days—five days when I’ve either been playing Blitz Scrabble or thinking about playing Blitz Scrabble. Five days while tiles danced through my head as I fell asleep. Five days of turning into a teenage boy once again. It’s quite clear that there’s only one solution: I am going to have to go to the Parental Controls dial on my computer—I’m sure there is one—and put Scrabulous.com on the Don’t Go There list, or whatever it’s called.
So