A couple of weeks ago, I made a spur of the moment impulse purchase: a tamagotchi. Does a 42-year old woman with a full-time job and a head full of anxiety need a tamagotchi? No.
Is this same woman capable of taking care of a tamagotchi when she can barely keep her own life in something that, maybe if you’re squinting your eyes and the light isn’t that great, could be considered “order”?
Also a resounding “NO”.
I had one when they first came out, 20-something years ago. Its first incarnation died after a couple of days, after all, I was a busy 20 year old with an actual social life. The second one made it until it evolved and went off to wherever fully grown electronic beings go off to. I never played with it again.
So far, in the two weeks I’ve had this thing, I’ve killed it twice. TWICE. The first time, I accidentally left it at home while I went to work. We came home to find it had shuffled off its mortal coil and hit the big reset button in the sky.
I thought the second attempt was going better. Every morning, I dutifully stuck it in my pocket before leaving the house. It was fed regularly, I dutifully cleaned up its dookie, and played with it when I could. I did everything I should have been doing.
Thursday night, we were pulling out of the driveway to get some dinner when the tamagotchi started beeping. It wouldn’t respond to any of my button pressing, it just beeped. Then, I noticed the beeping was slowing down. “Oh God, please tell me that’s not a fucking heartbeat and this thing is dying,” I said.
It was.
I’m a grown-ass woman and I’m freaking out, frantically pushing buttons in an attempt to keep this overpriced keychain alive. The heartbeep gets slower, and slower. Eventually, it makes a tinkling sound, and it’s over. There’s nothing but an angel on the screen, fluttering in tamagotchi heaven or whatever. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be a kid and dealing with that sort of thing.
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