Chilling at the club

We've been spending a lot of time at the club. Club Penguin, that is. Is this some new and exciting spot for aged hipsters? Hell, no. It's an MMPORG (God, I hate acronyms) for small children, and the children of this house are addicted. What's more, the parents are enabling that addiction in the most degenerately codependent of ways.

First, Anton insisted upon taking out paid subscriptions for BOTH children. I would have been happy to make them share a penguin avatar, but this way, each gets her own "peng." In the world of Club Penguin, hordes of penguin avatars mill about, chatting in a simplistic way, decorating their igloos, and playing games to earn penguin coins. The ways in which children may upgrade their penguin's homes and possessions are seemingly endless.

I caught Anton sitting up, after the children had gone to bed, playing Club Penguin, trying to earn some penguin cash for Lola to spend (she was so excited when she bought her first acquisitions, a scarf and a watch for the penguin). I scoffed at him. I should have held my tongue, because I ended up promising Lola I'd help her earn enough to upgrade her basic igloo to the deluxe, two level, pastel pink igloo. This was not easy, because (a) whenever I built up any cash in Lola's penguin's account, she'd immediately spend it on pink clothing for the penguin and Christmas tree lights for her tiny, basic igloo, and (b) I stayed up until 1:00 in the frigging morning, earning thousands of penguin coins, and then the Club Penguin server froze up and I lost everything (I was too embarrassed to complain to the Club Penguin support people).

This morning I complained to the old husband that I felt stressed by everything I have to do. I had (and have) a massive To Do list, featuring such diverse items as buying Christmas presents (the husband insists on getting an ipod), finding a new tattoo artist, finally getting my frigging flu shot (I've tried twice unsuccessfully to get one), finding an attorney in a different state, mailing the property taxes, figuring out a good ornament-making crafts project for the first grade holiday party, making fruit salad for fourteen people to bring to a faculty appreciation lunch, etc.., etc... not to mention earning enough Club Penguin money to upgrade Lola's igloo to the finest one available (I would have chosen the more affordable tiki hut upgrade). Anton suggested, dryly enough, that I might drop the igloo upgrade from the top tier of the list.

Sad to say, I scratched off the property taxes and the igloo upgrade today (the Christmas shopping will just have to wait). But I'm no farther ahead. Now, in the interests of sibling equity, I must assist Iris in achieving the same igloo splendor. Sigh.