Dear Kaos Trap,

You elude me.  I follow sites and refresh Amazon daily, hoping to encounter your translucent black countenance, and yet you continue to mock me. I can almost hear your odd cadence as you call me “Sky-loser” while I enter yet another Target, disappointed at the empty space meant for you.

I swim through endless piles of water traps and live through the disappointment of a growing inventory of life traps. I do all of this in the vain hope that I’ll encounter you one day. All to no avail. My daughter begs me to find you, to keep looking, and my hopes are constantly crushed as I find your limited inventory (2 per box of traps) with your price skyrocketing faster than a prisoner escaping Cloud Cracker Prison.

You mock me relentlessly, and haunt my dreams with a cruelness that Dreamcatcher could never fathom. Someday I will find you, and with $5.99 you will belong to me. Then with a squeal of joy you will be mine, er, OURS forever.

Always,

Tuff Luck Mom

By Kelly Allard

Associate Editor

I think one of the hardest things to write about is yourself! Either you sound absolutely insane or completely uninteresting… so, I’ll try to hit the middle ground.

I am a 30-something mom to very vibrant and very intelligent 4-year old daughter who is one of the biggest geeks I’ve ever known. She does come by it honestly, considering her father and I are both just a *little* geeky! Our little family hides in the middle of a city in upstate NY.

By day, I am embedded deep in the culture of corporate America building spreadsheets while I play the eternal game of trying to beat my last latest-and-greatest idea. By night, I’m the intrepid superhero “Gamer Mom” - you know, the one with as many faces as she has ways to beat you in Settlers of Catan?

My educational background is in Math and I love all things science-y, so I try to integrate those loves with my love of gaming! Mostly, I gravitate towards board games these days, as I have been an avid board gamer for as far as I can remember. That said, I also like to tabletop, LARP and have only recently come back to the obsessive hobby that is video games.

Gaming is something that I see as more than just a hobby, it’s a part of life that we only sometimes get to formalize in fun. We play games every day to be more productive, to get that promotion, to convince our kids to clean off the table. We thrive on achievement, on competition, and on cooperation. Whether you’re earning the “Explorer badge” in WoW, or the Longest Rail in Ticket to Ride, or your newest gold star on the Potty Chart, it’s all the same. Games are more than something we do to escape life, they are something we need to understand and master to be successful at life.

So that’s me. Hopefully I can help inspire you to find the fun in everyday life as well.

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