One Week Down －１週間が過ぎた－

It has been one week since my son started his school summer holidays. 

I took him out shopping with me this morning, and he was mostly helpful.  He let me put my hand on his shoulder and he guided me around the supermarket, picking out the things I wanted to buy.  We met the mother of one of his friends working at the checkout, who said hello to him. 

The problem of the summer holidays is finding ways to fill my son’s time.  Taking a walk to the supermarket, or letting him help with the cooking or washing up can help to break up the day.  Unfortunately, it can also lead to problems.  My son used the same spoon to scoop out some dressing and to scoop out sesame seeds, making all of the seeds dirty this morning. This caused a row with his mother. 

I mentioned last week that we got our son his first computer game to give him another way to kill time at home.  We got him the very old fashioned game Pong.  To win the game, you have to hit a ball across the screen to your opponent’s side, like a game of table tennis.  Because my son had never played a computer game before, he was very slow to pick up the idea of the game.  He couldn’t beat his computer opponent, and was getting very frustrated and angry.  So I suggested that he play a game against me. 

“He will gain some confidence from beating me,” I thought. 

I sat on the right side of the computer, and my son was on the left.  I am of course blind, so I was randomly moving the paddle up and down. 

“Ping, pong, ping!  The right player has won!” said the computer.  Somehow, my son had lost to a blind man.  No wonder he couldn’t beat his computer opponent. 

After a few days, my son got the hang of Pong and now beats the computer almost every time.  Pong was free.  We are thinking about buying the 1988 version of Double Dragon for 500 Yen next.  So the sounds will change from “Ping, pong, ping,” to “Bash, Crunch, Bash,” as it is a martial arts “beat-em-up” game.  And perhaps we can get through another week…

 

Vocabulary:

a row – a noisy disturbance or quarrel

[eg. He had a row with his girlfriend about money.]

a paddle – an alternate word for a table tennis racket.  According to Wikipedia, the official word is “racket” but it is generally called a “paddle” in America and a “bat” in Europe and Asia

beat-em-up – a genre of computer game, from the phrase “beat them up”.  It involves a character punching and kicking opponents