Nov 30, 2020 3 min read

I am not known for my dexterity and poise. I am quite the opposite of those things. Grace is something I’d say before Christmas dinner. It’s definitely not a quality I possess. I’m not light on feet like a cat. I’m agile like a hippopotamus. In certain circles, the word “klutz” has been bandied about. Try not to use it in front of me. It’s my trigger word.

It was a bad idea for me to play video games in a virtual world.

Picture it: I’m in a ski lodge in Deep Creek, Md., with my friends when they outfitted me with the Oculus, a virtual reality game. The device comes with a visor and two wrist gauntlets to control your movements. I was dressed like an overweight superhero, cross between the X-Men’s Cyclops and First Act Mr. Incredible.

All of the furniture was moved out of my way, sofas and coffee tables. No ottomans. I would have flipped over it like Rob Petrie sometimes does in the opening credits of “The Dick Van Dyke Show.”

They switched it on and I was immediately immersed in the virtual world. It was a video game that was happening all around me, side-to-side, below and above. It was pretty trippy, very Star Trek Holodeck stuff.

First, I shot robots in a “Space Pirates” game. Then, I became an archer in a mythical realm-like game where I had to shoot orcs, ogres and dragons from the parapet of a fortress. It was very “Game of Thrones-y.”

Because I was wearing these gloves with sensors in them, I could feel the bow string grow taut as I pulled it back. The arrows would fly off and miss the invading army of storybook creatures.

At one point, I dodged out of the way of an axe flying at my head. I momentarily forgot that the axe was made of ones and zeroes. I ducked down along the wooden railing to avoid what could have been a fatal blow. The problem is … I used the wooden railing to lift myself up. Note: There was no wooden railing. It was also binary code generated by a computer programmer. I’m sure you can imagine what happened when I grabbed the intangible railing to steady myself.

If you said, “Mike fell down and went boom,” you get the bonus points.

I jumped up and yelled, “I’m OK!” I continued to kill orcs. Then, a giant dragon flew at me and I leaped backward, tumbling down, with the very expensive toy strapped to my skull.

The visor flew off my head and suddenly I was back in the living room of the ski lodge.

Side note: My actual surroundings weren’t too shabby either.

But I digress, like I do. I had to be picked up from the floor. Luckily, I did not sustain major damage, neither did the Oculus. Of course, I was more worried about the toy.

I am, however, a little sore from my adventures in Fairyland.

Game over.