Me and video games have always had a strained relationship. Mainly because I stink at each and every one of them…always have and I suspect always will. Generally I’m not inclined to fits of rage or anger but video games never fail to get my Underoos in a bunch. Buck Rogers if you must know.

My brother and I, like many children in 1982, found an Atari 2600 under the Christmas tree. We were ecstatic, our very own video game, something else to add to the long list of things for us to fight about. And fight we did. As if it wasn’t bad enough that I stunk at each and every game I had to put up with an irritating little brother beating me and telling me that I stunk.

As you Atari aficionados are aware the Atari came with a “Joy Stick” that the smiling, happy player used to control the objects on the screen. One stick…one button…how hard could it be? If only the objects on the screen would have done what I wanted them to do when I wanted them to do it. Someone at the Atari factory failed to put the “joy” in my stick. When I was “playing” I looked like an angry epileptic chimp trying to get the lid off a jar of homemade pickles.

Such fun, such happiness, such delight, such joy…for my brother and anyone else that played me anyway. For me it was agony. Joyless, frustrating, agony. I feel it welling up now 30 years later just thinking about it. Why wouldn’t Donkey Kong jump the barrel? Why did the Pit Fall guy always..always..always fall into the alligator infested pit? Why did those ghosts in Pac-Man out maneuver me every single time? Why oh why?

There have been many video game consoles that have come out since the Atari 2600. My son has an Xbox 360 that he seems to be able to operate without much problem. I have heard the telltale sounds of video game rage coming from his room from time to time but it’s short lived and he seems to move on with the game quickly once the fit has passed.

He’s talked me into playing a game with him a few times and yes I still stink. I still stink, still get frustrated, and still feel like crushing the controller into tiny little pieces each and every time some zombie gets me before I get them.

Gone is the one stick, one button layout of the previously mentioned “Joyless Stick”. The controllers now have more buttons than I have fingers, which seems unfair from the get go and, for your information, I have a full set of 10 digits despite taking high school shop. I watch my son’s fingers flutter with ease around the controller as the zombie killer on the screen expertly moves here and there making zombies wish they had never been born…or dead…I don’t know anymore.

Then it’s my turn. My son’s barking directions…right flipper, “X” button, left trigger…the zombies are closing in. I assume their closing in. I haven’t had a chance to actually look up at the screen as the 63 buttons are giving me and my 10 fingers about as much sensory input as a man in my condition can hope to handle. I’m not sure exactly what that condition is but I know I’ve had it since Christmas 1982 and it could turn out to be fatal…for everyone but the zombies.

Happy 15th Birthday to my son Jackson. May your day be shiny and bright like the braces we got you instead of a dirt bike, a llama or a chimp.