My oldest son is the Candy Crush king.
A good thing, this is, given that I'm anything but the queen.
I am, let's just say, a newbie to the game. While the son is on level 532 - or something like that - I'm still locked in at level 20.
The two or three of you out there who are unfamiliar with Candy Crush - or Candy Crush Saga, as it's more properly known - may be interested in knowing the game is the go-to app these days.
I'm sure it long ago replaced Angry Birds as the world's No. 1 waster of time. And, in fact, my betting is that if there are 30 people on a bus fiddling with their mobile devices on any given day, one is reading email, two are sending texts, and 27 are playing Candy Crush.
I don't know how I discovered it. I do know I'm addicted.
"A question," I said to the son the other day. I had called him. Long distance. With a bit of an emergency.
"What's that thing that looks like a Licorice Allsort? You know, the beaded kind. Is it special, or what?" The son said yes, and told me it was actually called a colour bomb. Then the son told me about
the powers of the striped candies and the wrapped candies. Then the son talked about the importance of getting four in a row, and of earning boosters and of clearing the jelly. Then the son explained how I could get more lives when I ran out, which I inevitably would.
The call probably cost $10.60.
I went back to my game.
The telephone rang. It was an old pal. The old pal wanted to chat.
"I'll have to call you back," I said. "Playing
Candy Crush. Trying to reach my target score."
I didn't, of course.
Unlike the king, I have not been breezing through the levels.
There are a few other things I have also not been doing. Like returning emails, say. And reading my book. And washing the clothes.
"Wanna go get those groceries now?" the husband asked this morning.
"In a minute - or maybe 20," I said. "I'm trying to earn some boosters."
Candy Crush, let's just say, is starting to interfere with other things I should be doing.
Like buying food, for instance. And eating it.
Ah well. Things will calm down as my game gets on track. Just a few hundred levels to go.
