Chronicles of a Newbie: Playing the Waiting Game
So, most likely you’ve heard of the Chronicles of Narnia, a series of fantasy novels, one of which was made into a movie. Well, these aren’t them.
Welcome to the “Chronicles of a Newbie”, a series of articles following the footsteps of a new player to the Sim. The various articles will dictate experiences and stories of my stable, R13Green, and me, Rachael. So sit back in a comfortable chair or couch, grab a virtual drink of choice, and read on!
Chapter 2: Playing The Waiting Game
I have never been a patient person. That’s why the idea of a 72 hour waiting period scared me. And as I am sitting here, writing this, I am currently serving on jury duty, which is the World Cup of waiting. How’s that for a bad break?
Anyway, I work at Petco, and we sell dog clothes there. Most of the time I think they’re silly. But I could identify with one of them that I saw there earlier this week. It was a black t-shirt and was written from the dog’s point of view. It said:
“can we go outside?”
“come, go outside!”
“wanna go outside?”
“let’s go outside!”
“look who’s outside!”
“look, WE’RE outside!”
That’s the way I felt during the waiting period. Every few minutes (more like every few seconds) I’d go back to the website and try to log in. Each time I got the long paragraph explaining why I couldn’t. Yet doggedly I’d return to the game, over and over again, going “click click click”. I should have been wearing that dog t-shirt, except in my case, it’d be talking about horses. My eyes kept glancing up at the digital clock. Somewhere in my head I was imagining it ticking, and then imagining me HEARING it tick. I swore I was going crazy, or something.
Then…
IT WORKED! WOOHOO! I was ecstatic. I eagerly opened up the email containing my password, all the while wondering how the heck I was going to remember it. I had hoped I could change the combination of letters and numbers into something I knew, but alas, I could not. I suppose it’s safer this way, with the random combination, rather than entering in a word or phrase.
Either way, bada-bing! My five horses were there. I skimmed over the list and clicked on the various names. I knew that I wasn’t going to get all my choices (obviously, since you make ten selections and there are only five slots available), but after I examined all of them, I was satisfied. I had to laugh a bit though, as I couldn’t really remember the choices I had made, even after sitting there for a good two hours picking and choosing.
I was extremely excited and raring to go. What didn’t click in my head was the fact that I had joined on a Sunday, and would have to WAIT the rest of the week for race results. Augh! To pass the time, I decided to scope out the auction and claiming races. I wasn’t exactly sure of a strategy, but that would soon change…
In The Next Chronicle: “Whoops, My Finger Slipped”, in which Rachael mistakenly claims a horse she did not mean to.