Quick game of Spider Sol, anyone?

By Lonnie Cruse

The words quick game and Spider Solitare do not go together. The game of Spider Solitare has become the bane of everyone who writes, most certainly better writers than me. More talented, more organized. Yet it gets them as well. It's insidious, sitting there on the computer desk top, luring the owner to play just one more game. You nearly won the last game, right? Just that stinking King that landed at the bottom of the pile, blocking you from cleaning out the entire pile? If you click "new game" surely the cards will fall better this time, and you can win. Surely. Rarely happens. OR if I do happen to win, the score is low, not anywhere near my record of 1195 in one game (medium difficulty, because the easy is too, well, easy, and I simply can't beat the difficult.)

What about Free Cell you ask? Ha! I laugh at the difficulty. Regular Solitare? Again, I laugh. I can beat both with one eye closed. But Sider Sol? Sigh.

Which just shows you that I have waaaay too much time on my hands. Time I should be writing. Reading. Answering e-mails. ANYTHING besides playing that stupid game. And getting the living daylights beat out of me by a computer game. Who programed this thing, anyhow?

One thing computer games accomplish is giving us time to think. And plot. And our brains have time to focus on other things, which often allows a real idea to sneak out into the open, where we need it. Then, IF we can force ourselves to click out of the game (without saving it, if we're really brave) we can go back to writing and finish the plot. Or re-write. Or answer email and make some sense of it. But it's a big IF.

I wonder if there is a twelve step program for Spider Sol players? Excuse me, I think I need to check the Yellow Pages. Again.