Jaws

Don't call me Ishmael, okay? Because I am not friggin' Ishmael.

This game turned me into Ahab.

For about 24 hours, maybe less, I developed an obsession with this game. See, I figured out how to up your own power so you could knock down Jaws--you have to go back and forth between the two ports, and if you docked with at least 5 conch shells you upped your power.

So there I was, going from port to port, excited that this game that had always vexed me during childhood and made me just throw down the controller, muttering, "This blows!", was about to meet its match: Adult Laura.

Adult Laura has the power of logic and reason, of life experience. Some stupid pixelated shark could be no match to my Vulcan-like video game reasoning abilities.

Okay, I'm not even remotely Vulcanesque. But you get my point.

When, after sailing from port to port and numerous encounters with jellyfish, sting rays, and Jaws hisownself, I finally faced the big bad shark and shot so many of those weird little arrows into his face that his power bar went down to nil.

I was pleased.

I was pleased, because I thought I had beat the game.

But I hadn't. See, once I had knocked down that power bar, the game knocked me into a different screen. It was like looking into the water off the bow of a ship. I figured out that by hitting A, I could make Jaws pop out of the water, and by hitting B, something happened with the ship--it jolted forward.

All I can figure is that I'm supposed to make Jaws pop out of the water and them ram him with the damn ship.

Oh, did I try--I sailed around the screen, looking for Jaws. I'd find him, get dropped into the water. I would deftly maneuver the diver to and fro, firing madly at Jaws and those smaller sharks that keep popping up.

And do you know what would happen, time and time again?

A DAMN JELLYFISH WOULD SWIM INTO ME.

In my hands, I held the power to kill JAWS. A BIG, EFFING SHARK. And then pow! a jellyfish.

J E L L Y F I S H.

So do you know what hours of cursing at the screen and shooting the shit out of sharks amounted to? Me being defeated by friggin' jellyfish.