After safely depositing Trey and his stitched foot at his apartment on Monday night, I raced home to meet my college girls who were coming over for our weekly Life Group. A couple of them were already in my driveway by the time I got home, so after getting us inside, I got a pan full of cookies into the oven as quickly as possible.

As you can see from the following picture captured by my cellular device, they turned out lovely.

Listen, the way I see it, the cookies were going to come out of the oven one of two ways: either totally burnt (my typical specialty!) or not exactly fully cooked.  I chose the latter because, quite honestly, the girls had actually wanted to eat the cookie dough raw but I wouldn’t let them because, hello, no one’s getting salmonella on my watch.

I think I just turned into my mother.  I’M TOO YOUNG FOR THIS.

Also, I’d just like to mention that?  The coffee maker you see the edge of in the picture above?  Oh yes, that would be the $3.00 one that caused me to almost lose my Christian witness the day after Thanksgiving BUT DID I MENTION IT WAS ONLY THREE DOLLARS?!?

Once the other girls got there, it only took about 27 seconds for the cookies to be devoured and, after we had technically finished Life Group, I announced that we were going to learn the moves to Hannah Montana’s “Hoedown Throwdown” next mainly because I’ve been wanting to master those sweet dance moves ever since I watched the movie on my way to London last summer and I figured that I might as well make my college girls learn them with me, except for the two of them who already knew the moves by heart (I’m looking at you, Anna and Stephanie).

After we had successfully proved that, really, we’re still middle school girls at heart, it was time for the ultimate competition to begin: a Dr. Mario playoff on the Wii.

I have this feeling in my heart that only a few of you are going to know what I’m talking about when I say “Dr. Mario” and that makes me sadder than I will ever be able to convey.  For those of you who don’t know, it’s a video game that Nintendo came out with in 1990.  My brother and I would play it for hours as children mainly because it was the only — and I mean only — video game I knew how to play (it’s a lot like Tetris, if you’re familiar with that game).

Flash forward many, many years later to the relationship I was in last year.  My boyfriend had a Wii and I happened to mention one night that I wish they had Dr. Mario for the Wii because I hadn’t played the game in years.  The next time I came over to his house, he surprised me with the game which actually ended up being a bad move on his part because I was suddenly far more interested in playing the game than spending time with him.  Oops?

True story: when we broke up last year, I would sometimes think about certain things I missed about the relationship and, naturally, get sad.  Then I’d start thinking about how I’d never get to play Dr. Mario again and get even sadder.

But then everything changed when I got a Wii this Christmas because, approximately three minutes after Gosling set it up for me, I instructed him to download Dr. Mario, which is fantastic because, if I end up spending the rest of my life single as a slice of cheese, at least I will own Dr. Mario and know how to change a blown fuse.

Oh, you read that correctly: when my fuse went out last week, I most definitely had to change it myself because Gosling was going out of town and didn’t have time to come over and deal with my little problem of having no electricity in 1/3 of my house, but hey, no big deal Gosling, it isn’t like I’m going to remember this for the rest of our lives and remind you of it the next time you need me to do something for you like, oh I don’t know, share my notes from last week’s Advanced Grammar class that you missed.

Also: when I went to the local hardware store to purchase a fuse or two to replace in my breaker box, I couldn’t find anyone to direct me to the fuse aisle and got a little frustrated and, when some poor salesman finally approached me to ask if I needed help, I promise you — I PROMISE YOU — that I looked him directly in the eyes and said “Do you happen to have any boyfriends in stock?”

For the record, they didn’t but they did have the type of fuse I needed.  You win some, you lose some.

But back to the good doctor.   So, since I’ve been the proud owner of a circa-1990 video game, I’ve become addicted to it.  Like, I want to play ALL THE TIME.  It has this feature where I can play people live from around the world and suddenly I’m realizing that I probably sound like a complete geek right now but, really, I don’t even care BECAUSE THAT IS HOW MUCH I LOVE THIS GAME.

It’s been my goal for awhile now to cause other people that I’m in direct relationship with to also become addicted to this game because it’s more fun to play someone live in your living room, especially since, currently, no one can dominate me.  I first got Gosling hooked on the game and then set out to get my college girls roped in to ensure that I’ll always have a large number of opponents to choose from on any given night of the week.

Three of them — SarahRuth, Anna and Stephanie — took the bait and are now, by their own admission, absolutely addicted to the game as well.  It’s been the subject of Facebook statuses, late night calls and, as you’ll see from below, even texts.

Anna:  I have some good news.  I found a way to play Dr. Mario online.  By next Monday, I should be invincible.

Me:  Oh, please.  I’ve had YEARS of practice.

Anna:  Ok, perhaps not invincible.  But I think you’ll find my form much improved.

That’s right; Anna is working on her Dr. Mario playing “form.”  But that isn’t even the worst part; last Monday night, whilst trying to teach Anna and Stephanie tricks on how to beat the different levels, I got frustrated and announced — with absolute seriousness — that one night in the near future, I will be teaching a “Dr. Mario Theory” class so they can learn why they need to make certain moves in certain places in the game.

Send help before we quit going to our jobs and classes because we’ve stayed up all night playing a 1990 video game.