Okay, background here: I'm home sick today after having one of my lower wisdom teeth yanked. Drugged up on codeine I am playing EQ on my husband's orders ("Go tradeskill all afternoon," he said, knowing my joy in this). At this particular moment, I'm fishing with an alt in PoK, finding that hitting the Fishing and Autoinventory buttons is just enough challenge for my mildly medicated state.
My seven-year-old is sulking after a time-out and her father has exhausted the kid-entertaining activities. She's sitting in my lap, watching me hit my hotkeys and fishing in third-person view. Slowly, the sulk fades and I mumble around my half-frozen lips, "Do you want to try?"
Mind you: this is an autistic child who has never had the least interest in EQ. I didn't expect any reaction, I just wanted to see if I could get her to respond.
Wow! Within a minute, she is grinning, enraptured and wanting to know all about selling the rusty daggers and sandals back to the merchants. I smile as she takes over and then tell her "when the stack is full, I'll let you try out something else."
We buy a couple of stack of batwings, break out the spit and start making fish rolls. She eager counts up each skill-up point with a "hooray!" and explains to her elder sister (who's an EQ veteran) that Everquest is perfect for kids to cook in. She is now a bona fide tradeskilling fanatic and wants to know what we can bake next!
So I'm smiling through the lower jaw pain because EQ tradeskills brought me a happy family moment.
My seven-year-old is sulking after a time-out and her father has exhausted the kid-entertaining activities. She's sitting in my lap, watching me hit my hotkeys and fishing in third-person view. Slowly, the sulk fades and I mumble around my half-frozen lips, "Do you want to try?"
Mind you: this is an autistic child who has never had the least interest in EQ. I didn't expect any reaction, I just wanted to see if I could get her to respond.
Wow! Within a minute, she is grinning, enraptured and wanting to know all about selling the rusty daggers and sandals back to the merchants. I smile as she takes over and then tell her "when the stack is full, I'll let you try out something else."
We buy a couple of stack of batwings, break out the spit and start making fish rolls. She eager counts up each skill-up point with a "hooray!" and explains to her elder sister (who's an EQ veteran) that Everquest is perfect for kids to cook in. She is now a bona fide tradeskilling fanatic and wants to know what we can bake next!
So I'm smiling through the lower jaw pain because EQ tradeskills brought me a happy family moment.

Comment