Up late talking games & writing? You're...

My wonderful, wonderful mother-in-law is staying with the wife and I for about a week or so. She and her husband live in Russia, so I've not had many chances to spend much time with them although we do connect over the phone, Skype, videochats online, and so forth.

Anyway, this is the biggest consecutive block of time we've had to get to know each other, and it's been great. After a day of hanging out, I was taking five and decided to grab a little downtime by firing up the 360. I was going to jump straight into Half-Life 2: Episode 2, but I saw her just sort of chillin' on the couch, so I invited her over for some Live Arcade action.

I fired up Tetris Splash and asked if she wanted to play.

"What's Tetris?" she says.

Hold the phone... say what??? I think I feel the Earth suddenly stop rotating.

"What's Tetris?!? Are you serious?" 

If it wasn't for the totally sincere look on her face, I'd swear she must be putting me on. I suggest that surely she must have at least heard of it, if not played it.

"No, I don't think so."

Words cannot fully express the amazement I felt that there was still a person in the world who hadn't played or even heard of Tetris. I mean, the game's been around forever, been ported to every platform known to man, and sold more copies than the cumulative number of  people who've lived on earth since the dawn of humanity. 

I felt like I had just stumbled into a glade and seen a unicorn, or that I had gone out for an afternoon fishing trip and brought home Nessie in a net. The impossible was living and breathing, right here in front of me.

After my wife pulled me up off the floor, I sat down with my mother-in-law and we played some Tetris. It took her a minute to get the gist, but then she was off and did quite well for her first time out. I told her I was proud of her, and thanked her for playing before I realized I had just witnessed the end of an era....

Tetris' hold on humanity was now complete, the last free human having been assimilated.