There is a clear line between a fun checklist and an anxiety-worrying receipt, and if there is only one simple line on the page, then it’s an anxiety list with a lengthy record detailing chores that plague the house each day.

  Lists are normally fun to me because they set a realistic guideline on how to reach my goal, a path to happiness and organization, and how to stay focused as I cross off items. Now, I’m hunched over the kitchen counter, feeling the weight grow like the mountains of knots in my neck as I cross off another item on the honey-do request and scribble two more on the side. The words “Fix screeching door hinges” barely fit on the side of the constantly growing list. I didn’t need to explain which door because it kindly reminded me right now as Tristan and our dog Ghost walked back inside into the house. The screeching was an added security feature, not a bug, for now. No child of mine could sneak out to the fridge in the garage and grab a soda.

  “Dad, hurry!” my youngest, Tristan, got between me and the kitchen counter. His four-foot build pushed against my stomach, trying to move me. “I want to play!”

  “I know, I know. But we have to clean first.” I tried stepping around him, but he pushed against my stomach more.

  “Play FIRST, then clean up later.” Elaine groaned as she grabbed my wrist to get me to stop reaching for the sink. “Those dishes aren’t vanishing in fifteen minutes.”

  “In fifteen minutes, I go poof!” chirped Tristan below me, as if he was proud of the problem he created. It made him the center of attention.

  I glanced at the pile of dishes from our dinner. A gravy slid down Elaine’s plate and into the pile of cookware below. The sink was a battlefield waiting for a hero to arrive.

  “We still need to clean up after dinner. We don’t want mice guests,” I reminded the kids.

  Tristan stopped pushing and grabbed the last bits of food on the table. He didn’t even cover the bread rolls or the pot of beans as she shoved them onto a shelf in the fridge. Elaine continued to drag me away from the scorned dishes. Their excitement to go play tempted me to avoid chores because we already put in a full school day and workday of crunching numbers, it would be great to unwind. However, duty called since I was the sole grown-up caring for the house and children.

  “But what about homework?” I looked at Elaine.

  Tristan was in first grade, meaning he was too young to have any homework. Elaine was now in high school and assigned school projects. She gave me a response by sticking out her tongue and looking away toward the hallway.

  I anchored my bare feet on the hard vinyl and grounded myself as the parental figure. “Do your homework before we play.”

  Tristan chuckled while sprinting down the hall to the office, and the dog followed, both glad to be done with the heavy discussion.

  “Dad,” my daughter whined. “If we don’t get in there, Tristan’s going to vanish on the boat to another continent.”

  “It’s only a game. We’ll be fine,” I repeated my mantra to her.

  “No, we won’t! We’ll get separated because of where he logged off while fishing. If that happens, then why are we bothering to play anymore, and like what’s the point?” Her voice cracked. This wasn’t just an overreaction of being a teenager; that was obvious as she grabbed a lock of brown hair and twisted it around her fingers and took a few breaths. “Please, this was supposed to be our game, not just Tristan and me. It’s not the same without you.”

  The sunflower analog clock’s second hand felt like it was moving too fast for right now with how slow I was debating on the right action. Hesitating meant Tristan faced being separated from our group. We wanted to play games as a family.

  I rubbed my forehead to hide my embarrassment at caving in to my kid’s gaming demands. “Maybe this once we can take care of Tristan and visit the city.”

  “Really?” The waterworks dried up around her eyes with my response.

  I walked down the hall with her. “Only if you promise to log off early tonight to finish your homework and I have time to finish the dishes before Mom gets home.”

  “Yes!” She danced down the hallway and around the toy cars and trucks.

  Tristan’s toys littered the path. He even had a construction site being built outside the bathroom door. Multiple cars and trucks created a traffic jam for my goliath-size feet to move through. I stubbed a toe and prayed I didn’t cause a fender bender on the F150 model. How that child collected over a hundred car toys in his life was not the shocking part; it was that he put every single one in the hallway in an organized traffic pattern. I tiptoed around the roundabout, which was a plate from the kitchen.

  As I bent over to pick it up, I heard Tristan shout out, “Leave it!”

  I replied, “You shouldn’t leave dishes in the… Oh, no, Ghost!”

  “Dad, make Ghost drop it!” Tristan ran after the tall Great Pyrenees. Next to its mouth hung a cable from the gaming capsule in the office. The dog had a big grin as it ran away from Tristan. The dog knew the commands, but like a child, easily ignored them when he wanted to.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  I jumped in front of the big fluffball, putting my hands up. “Sit, stay.”

  Ghost half-squatted, obeying the commands but avoiding the car toys below him.

  “Give it,” I ordered.

  Elaine giggled as she rushed past, and I noticed Tristan beaming and waving at me from the office doorway. Ghost gave me his white furry paw in an awkward three-legged stance, unsure of what I wanted. Looking at him, I noticed someone had woven the power cable through his collar, dragging it on the ground. The dog hadn’t stolen the cable and had acted as a messenger for my kid’s mischief.

  “Tristan!” I snapped with a grin. The kids would try anything to get me to go along with them. My eye caught the mess in the kids’ bathroom next to me. A loud reminder as the screeching door with the bucket sitting under the sink, tools spread out over on the countertop and a pile of towels sitting on the floor. The sink started having issues a while ago. I meant to fix it… before Tristan, Elaine, and then I got sick. Since then, I’ve been playing catch-up with the household list.

  “Hurry, Dad! That’s your cable!” The boy didn’t give me a chance to get anymore tempted by another Honey-Do project.

  “Tristan,” hissed his sister from inside the office and gaming room, “you’re the one that we need to get into the game now and off the ship.”

  I pulled the cable out of Ghost’s dog collar and gave the pooch some deserved head pets before passing me the cable. The young boy skipped toward his gaming capsule to aggravate his sister. He succeeded as she grumbled under her breath, even though she still helped him into the gaming capsule.

  I didn’t like that we were rushing into a game when real life had its own daily grind, quests of chores that needed to be finished and a grand quest of building a dam around the sink to fix it before the water broke loose. This was why I had lists, to keep track of important priorities, but those dailies and extra household challenges were really grating.

  Having settled Tristan inside, Elaine patted his capsule, then glanced at the clock and then at me. Looks like he and I are going on a solo adventure unless you fix that cable.”

  Even the hero needs a break to pick flowers in the meadow, time to enjoy with the family that isn’t just about saving them or rushing about to the next thing.

  “I’m coming with you guys. First, I need to undo what Tristan did.”

  “That little goblin,” Elaine smirked as she climbed into her capsule and launched Seconds-Over.

  With eight minutes to go until the boats sailed away, taking players all around the world if they wanted to. Every week, this occurrence disconnected traveling players from their current continent, which could destroy all the class quests we had planned. Elaine’s messenger, my tanking, Tristan’s goblin quest would all be gone if we took that ship and traveled somewhere else. We would have to start new class quests when we already didn’t have the time for our current ones.

  I paused plugging the cable into the computer to think. Tristan not continuing the goblin quest wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world because I wouldn’t have to tank his damage, just the monsters.

  Ghost nudged my leg demanding pets, but it was the reminder I needed.

  “Thanks, Ghost. I need to let him play his way and go join them.” I shoved the cable back in and turned on the device.

  Ghost’s tail wagged as I gave him one last pet, and it turned up the dust gathering on the fourth gaming capsule in the room. It had waited ages to be plugged in, gathering dust until Beth could get a break from work and join us. Playing games together as a family is an adventure in itself.

  “Until then, it’s me and the kids. I’ll get them leveled up for some grand adventure when we’re all together.” I whispered to her capsule as if she were watching over us from her lawyer job. It was only thanks to her hard work that we could afford four capsules.

  I closed my capsule and watched as it booted up the loading menus. My shoulders melted into the bed, feeling the comfort wash over me and replace the stress that was building from the workday. Now, it was time to play as I ordered the system to load up Seconds-Over.

  >>><<<

  [Update is Required. Installing the patch now.]

  >>><<<

  “What?!” I screamed in frustration, and this new bump slowed me down in getting to the kids fast.

  I pulled up the local messaging service and sent one to Elaine in the game. She was the most responsible child.

  [Blaine: I didn’t know there was a patch. Try to get your brother off the ship.]

  [Elaine: Already trying! There was one three days ago.]

  [Blaine: Three days ago, was a Friday, who does a patch on the busiest gaming night?]

  [Elaine: Complain to Mom, not me. Just hurry.]

  [Blaine: Tristan, get off the ship now.]

  I stared at the patch information to change from downloading to installing. Seconds-Over opened up to the public last week, so this patch was probably a hot fix to all the bugs the new players found. Beth worked as a lawyer for Seconds-Over, getting us early access to the game. It would have been better during summer, not during the school year. We got to play it a few times before we got sick. Looking for the silver lining in life, I reminded myself that meant our levels were still low enough that Beth could catch up when she caught a break.

  [Tristan: There’s fish! I want to capture one.]

  “For the kids. It’s just a game and for fun.” I reminded myself while watching the painful installer go up to ten percent. I mumbled to myself. “Feed a child a fish and he won’t eat it. Teach a child to fish, and he will use it to avoid listening to his parents.”

  The update bar on the patch installation jumped suddenly.

  >>><<<

  [99% completed.]

  >>><<<

  I took a breath and tried to do a miniature meditation to calm my nerves, the same ones my therapist gave me years ago. It was only a game. It was not my job or life. There was no point in getting riled up about a calm and relaxing event with Elaine and Tristan. Life held countless possibilities beyond this single game. We could discover other activities together.

  I blinked, hoping it would move the percentage along. It did not. Why was the last percentage always the longest one? Did the developers intentionally code this false bit of hope to keep the user on edge by making the bar fill up? The developer gained nothing from my sitting here and wanting to force shutdown the system and retry the update again.

  The system clock stated it was five minutes until the top of the hour.

  Crud.

  We needed a good two minutes to get to the port, plus whatever time to board the ship. It was not enough time to restart the capsule all over again. I wouldn’t arrive in time for Tristan and Elaine.

  My anxiety jumped up to a six, which was enough to feed the hungry, soul-sucking developers and unlock the completed game patch.

  >>><<<

  [Update complete]

  >>><<<