CREATING A MONSTER

I understand now why The Jungle Princess didn't want us to hire a maid. You must know that a maid here costs about $75 US a month plus room and board. We have a maid's quarters downstairs not being used and food is a trivial item. The reason she didn't want a maid is she had been active all her life and needed something to do.

Well taking care of the house was a breeze for her and she soon was at loose ends. She wanted to get a Game Boy or something like that to hold her interest.

"Wait a minute," stupid me says, "that's not good enough for my wife. We'll get you a computer of your own. I've got all these computer games we can share. We'll put your desk alongside mine and I can teach you"

I taught her all right. Bad-a-bing bad-a-boom! Rockets and ray guns and killer lazers are flying all over the place. I can hardly follow what's going on. She beats my high scores by gillions. To make it worse, she doesn't even celebrate. She just stares at the screen with the hard eyes of an assassin, pissed that she got stopped anywhere, and starts over.

Once, she's looking over my shoulder while I'm playing one of the games. She has a quizzical look .

"What?" I asked sullenly, tired of getting my ass kicked.

"Why you play so slow?" she asked. She wasn't being sarcastic. She thought maybe I had a clever strategy to beat the game.

I swear, I didn't hit her with a full swing.