Thursday night I ended up angry at my daughters. A video game was to blame, but I didn't work that out until two hours later.
They thought it was about not going to sleep. They'd been at it for an hour and a half, talking and giggling, one setting off the other, and me raising my voice a little more each time.
In our house we call it the process: dinner, bath, teeth, PJs, a story, lights out. Written out in one line it even looks easy.
And normally I like it. It's the part of the day when I actually connect with them, when they hit me with the good questions. "Dad, if I swallow a lentil, will a plant grow in my belly?"
But not that night. That night I was just watching the clock.
Because I already had the plan: them asleep by 9:30, me on the sofa with a controller by 10. Nobody had asked me for that schedule. I set it myself.
And when the plan fell apart, I got angry at the only two people in the house who never signed up for it.
They fell asleep at 11. I sat down to play at 11:30, which for someone who gets up at six is very late. And no, this isn't the 5am burpees club, relax. Just so you know where the bar is.
I fell asleep with the controller in my hand.
I woke up at one. Drool down one side of my face, neck wrecked, and not one single memory of anything that had happened in my beloved Final Fantasy VII Remake.
And with a line stuck in my head: we can't direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails. I'd heard it a few days earlier in one of those stoic quote reels.
It was the first time I'd fallen asleep holding a controller. The pattern wasn't new.
I wasn't adjusting any sails. I was trying to cram what I wanted into the wrong gap, and then getting annoyed when it didn't fit.
At 20 I had more time than taste. Now it's the other way round. And it turns out taste beats time. I'd spent 20 years never touching the sails.
Taste is picking a game that fits your night, instead of a night that fits your game. It's playing 40 minutes awake instead of dozing through two hours out of pride.
That week I did one thing: I parked the Remake for whenever I have more time and more brain cells, and downloaded Absolum for everything else. Still there. Some nights the window is short, some nights my brain is fried, and some nights I even want to tryhard, dad edition. It took me a long time to work out which game belongs in which night. Not for lack of trying games.
Not long ago, on a subreddit full of dads, someone asked if any of them still managed to game. A thousand and sixteen replies. A thousand and sixteen people with a controller in their hands and their eyes closing, each one certain they were the only one.
You're not the odd one out.
For when...
...it's 11:30pm and all you have left is muscle memory: Absolum. An old-school beat 'em up from the Streets of Rage 4 team. You walk in and you swing: nothing to remember, nobody's name to keep track of.
Early runs last about fifteen minutes and get longer as you go, and the one that reaches the end can easily hit fifty. Doesn't matter. You quit from the menu whenever you need to and the run waits for you, and all you lose is the room you were in. The one thing you must not touch is the abandon run button, because that wipes the lot.
Not for you if you need a game to tell you a story: here the story is the excuse. It's on PC, PS5, Switch and Switch 2, and it landed on Game Pass back in March.
Hit reply and tell me who you took it out on last. I read every one.