Candy Crush is the worst thing to happen to human interaction since the printing press.
Remember my sister-in-law Heather? Gosh she was a great gal. She’s gone now. I mean, she’s sitting right next to me, but she hasn’t taken her eyes off her phone in six months. All her interpersonal relationships have been Candy Crushed.
“How’s your drink?” I ask her.
“Tasty,” responds a baritone. I’m pretty sure that’s Candy Crush talking, but honestly, maybe Heather does sound like lumberjack. I don’t remember.
She started with Facebook games. Planting fields and tending to virtual animals seemed harmless. But before long she was embroiled in Mafia Wars, whacking people left and right. We barely brought her back from the brink of a Bejeweled Blitz before Candy Crushed her.
I ask Heather a question to try engage her in conversation. The only response is my own phone chiming an alert. It’s Heather. She just sent me a game request from SongPop. I choose ’80s music to send her “Missin’ You” by John Waite. In return, she chooses the same and I hear Bow Wow Wow’s “I Want Candy” begin to play.
She’s starting to arrange socks in her kids’ drawers by color.
I just found out my brother is playing Candy Crush and paying for upgrades. My brother, who majored in stealing cable. A man so cheap, he wouldn’t pay to fix the heater in the car used by his wife and young daughters. Instead, he swapped cars with them and froze hit nuts off on the way to work every day. “Hell, it’s almost spring,” he said, pulling a Cinderella comforter tightly around his shoulders.
But restrict his daily limit Candy Crush games? Suddenly, he’s makin’ it rain.
When I told my mother this, she said: “Oh, we love Candy Crush!”
Dad nodded so enthusiastically I thought he might snap his neck.
“We’re on level 50!” he said. I hadn’t seen him that proud since the Flyers won the Stanley Cup.
World War Z is coming, but the Zombies will just be normal people who can’t remove their eyes from their phones.
My phone alert blares. Temporarily out of Candy Crush lives, Heather is requesting to play SongPop. She’s chosen Country Music.
“You’re turning into a Candy Crush zombie!” I scream at her.
“Here’s a Quarter, Call Someone Who Cares” begins to play.
