Tom Nook Stole My Wife
My wife had always really enjoyed Animal Crossing Pocket Camp. That seemed fine. It was just a sweet little phone game with weird looking animals that wandered about a bit. I didn’t really get it, but it was more of a way to chat to other people, and build things, and wander about another world. Like Second Life but with less sex — or I assume there was a less sex anyway…
But then, someone got her ‘Animal Crossing: New Horizons’, since we were in lockdown and all her friends were on it now. Something to do, and a way to keep in touch with everyone. What harm could there be in that?
Well, I suppose my life has certainly been a lot calmer — unless it’s turnip day, obviously. Can you imagine being married to the woman who turned up to sell her turnips, and then got to the island to find she’d forgotten her turnips? Oh my GOD. They were over 600 bells. There was a QUEUING SYSTEM to get in…
Does this all mean absolutely nothing to you? Come sit by me then, and let us talk about nothing to do with that bastard Tom Nook, and how he stole my fucking wife. Creepy little raccoon. All he cares about is money, and oppressing his minions, anyway.
I wouldn’t mind, but it’s not even a proper game, anyway. There’s a part where you have to collect bits of shooting stars, and the game creators have gone, here’s an idea, let’s see if we can get people to just stare at the sky for hours on end. It’s not even the real sky, for fuck’s sake. You just sit and stare at your console in the hope of seeing a shooting star. It can take hours. People do this. Grown adults with real jobs who are now in thrall to Tom Nook, standing around in bizarre costumes with hats that look like bums obsessing about where their secret beach is, and if you can replant money trees, and how to pay their mortgage off. Mmm. A game where you are constantly struggling to pay your mortgage off. And then panicking about buying and selling stuff, and you can actually lose all your money if you fuck up. Your turnips can rot if you get them from the wrong time zone, too. Ants come for them while you watch your investment rot in the rain.
I set up a zoom chat with a few of our friends, just to have some human interaction, rather than watch my wife illuminated by the dull glow of her screen, or attempt to feign interest in the 76th new outfit her character has bought. It was all going well whilst it was just one other friend and me, but as soon as my wife joined and a couple of other people, all the chat became about Animal fucking Crossing. I mean, all of it. I just sat in the background and drank and watched people be on screen and simultaneously on their consoles. Argh. Talk about a modern plague infecting all our interactions…
Apparently, I can have my own log in, and build my own little island, and be in hock to Tom Nook forever too. But all I can think of when I see it is the song Sixteen Tons by Johnny Cash because that seems to be the underlying principle of the game. I want to remain free. I have enough debt in the real world. It’s nice that people can chat and plant flowers and give each other presents and keep tigers and sit on benches, but capitalist society run as a benevolent dictatorship is not for me. Until there is an anarchy hack, I don’t want my own island, not until it’s no longer leased from the Supreme Leader and his twin sons. When someone works out how to defeat Tom Nook, then I’ll maybe play, but not til then. For now, I’ll just have to accept that I’m another Animal Crossing widow, and try to get on with my lonely life as best I can. I suppose it’s nice that she’s happy, and has a basic understanding of stocks and shares. Anyway, I have to go. My twitter timeline waits for no one…
