Would You Like to be a Widow?

So once a month about 15-20 women in my stake are made widows. No, not by death - by computers. Think golfing widows, only geekier. There is a big LAN party, where the guys all get together and 'socialize'. And by socialize I mean lugging all of their computers to someone's house, networking the computers, putting on headphones, and then not really having any sort of conversation for the next 7-9 hours. (Unless you count computer trash talk as conversation.) They eat junk food and drink lots of caffeinated soda; although, in their defense, Cole always provides the token veggie tray. They start at 6pm, take a couple of hours setting up, and then play until the wee hours of the morning. Lance often gets home around 4am. The next day they are all tired and grouchy, and no one wants to be around them because they think they are still teenagers and can stay up all night and not experience any side effects. :)

I imagine them strutting their stuff like peacocks and proving their masculinity like rams by comparing their computers and gaming skills. Monitor sizes, memory amounts, video cards, RAM speed, accessories like gaming keyboards and mice... arr arr arr! (Home Improvement grunts.) Very manly. Very geeky.

I must confess that my husband is the main instigator of this madness. He initially talked everyone into coming the first time. He (with my help, I admit!) came up with the group's name: LANily Home Evening. He created their website. And he has now designed a shirt (pictures tomorrow) and convinced everyone that they need one, too. So I guess you could say that he's the cause of all these widows.

But I have tried to make up for it by creating a group of my own with the wives and the kiddos of the LANers: the LAN Party Widows and Orphans. (Okay, so the kids aren't technically orphans, but it has a nice ring to it.) We get together on the LAN party nights and try to wear the kids out so that they will sleep well that night even though their daddies have abandoned them for computer games. This month the activity is at my house - the kids will have fun playing in the sprinklers and the moms will have fun chatting, snacking, and refereeing kids. Which leads me to my picture of the post. I have been working on these off and on all day and will be serving them tomorrow. Being a widow doesn't seem so bad now. :)