By Tessa Adams of familyfootnote.com
There are heroes among us too humble to show their faces. They are in our country, our state, and sometimes right down the block.
Mary Skinner of Chattanooga, Tennessee, has a story to tell. Hers is a tale of perseverance and tenacity. When picking up her son from an overnight birthday party that included a Game Truck, Mary Skinner listened to her son talk about Minecraft from beginning to end for an unprecedented 40 minutes. Too weak to speak to reporters, we were only able to interview her husband.
“It took them a while to get home. I know that the trip is 30 minutes on a good day, but the interstate was backed up, forcing the cars to a standstill for something like 40 minutes. When they got home, my 8-year-old, Mac, was so happy, but I noticed Mary didn’t come in. I went to the car to find her in a trance-like state behind the wheel.
“I helped her in the house, took off her shoes, and immediately brewed some tea. Although she was unresponsive at first, she kept muttering ‘creepers’ and ‘endermen.’ After the tea and some down time, color returned to her face and she was able to tell me what happened. After she explained what she had been through, she went to bed. It was 4 pm, but she had already lived two lifetimes since breakfast.”
Not since The Super Mario Explanation of 1999 has any mother dared to concentrate on an entire conversation about video games. Most mothers find a way to survive by going to a happy place or stopping the conversation with force.
Gina, from Oregon, commented that she has only endured 10 minutes of a conversation about Lego Batman, but she started to feel a pain in her head that was so overpowering, she had to shut it down. “Much like staring into the sun, you need to give your body a break. You could do permanent damage to yourself if you engage for too long in a conversation so terrible.”
As with most torture, when the subject begins showing weakness, the torturer only grows stronger. The same went for Mac. Sensing his mother’s concentration, he was drunk with power, explaining the ins and outs of the structures and regaling tales of defeating zombies and entertaining endermen. Similar to waterboarding, this practice of son against mother is under review for violating her basic human rights.
Children everywhere need to understand that adults do not have the tools available to be able to withstand conversations of this nature for so long. Although research is in the early stages, when the brain was tested by scientists during a conversation of this nature, a full hemisphere proved to just give up.
We are here, praying for a full recovery from Mary Skinner. She has support from her husband and teenage daughter, but it’s too soon to tell if that will be enough to repair her psyche fully.
Let this be a warning to all parents: You are too important to be caught in a situation of this caliber for this long. Break free for the sake of yourselves and the sake of your family. While Mary is a hero, she may never be the same.
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