I have finally gotten myself a library card.
For years I imagined the horrors of trying to keep library books around small rambunctious children, and decided that it was a stress that I didn’t need. However, over the last year I’ve started hearing more about how libraries have expanded out from traditional book-borrowing, and a few days ago my soul-sister told me about Libby.
My soul-sister then informed me that if I didn’t read A Court of Thorns and Roses, she would blackmail me by releasing my old roleplay from 2007 (total fabrication, such a threat never occurred😂).
So, I popped into the library on my way to Walmart to buy Minecraft (a story there), and I exited with a sparkly new library card in hand. Once home, I downloaded Libby, requested A Court of Thorns and Roses, and sent the book to my Kindle. Hurrah, I am literate! There’s a whole new world at my fingertips, just waiting for me to explore it! And the kids can’t rip any pages!
Then 24 hours later it dawned on me that I have only 2 weeks to read this book. Trivial. I read The House of My Mother in about three days, including when I had kids to care for. And yet I still have deadline anxiety.
The problem with coming from a “trad wife” background (which thus far I haven’t heard anyone acknowledge), is that now I struggle with feeling like mom is allowed to look at something other than family and chores. The shaming didn’t just come from my immediate surroundings, but also from every internet post criticizing women for looking at their phones. Do I stare dutifully at my children on the playground, or do I allow myself to read? Guilt free? I can’t finish reading a book in two weeks if I’m stuck staring at children all the time.
Besides, you and I both know that I’m not reading ACOTAR as a mom. I’m reading it as a woman — a woman who is sharing in a bond with other women through common fiction. A woman who is allowed to have friendships with other women.
So ACOTAR starts with the stereotypical thing of the main character being the strong one holding everyone together, while everyone else consumes resources and pitches in nothing. At first I thought that it seemed like a Mary-Sue depiction, establishing that the main character is “not like other women” by portraying other women as inept and spoiled. Then it hit me that what readers were connecting with wasn’t the “not like other women” trope, but instead the feeling of holding the entire damn world together without any help.
That I can relate to.
Oh boy can I relate to that.
Which brings us to my Minecraft story.
I’m sure that everyone knows that Minecraft is basically a staple of childhood. Heck, my kids have had school courses that were heavily integrated with Minecraft, because Minecraft is where it’s at. Modern childhood includes flooding villages with a bucket of water (or lava) and blowing up so much TNT that the computer can’t render the explosion. C’est la vie. But thus far, my kids have all been sharing one account for Minecraft.
Lately my kids have discovered the modding community. They have also discovered Minecraft creepypasta. And they melted my heart when they told me that they wanted to play the creepypasta mods on multiplayer together. I vowed that I would make their dreams come true.
Which ended up being kind of a mistake.
First I created their own Microsoft accounts, which was straightforward. Then I attempted to purchase Minecraft on one of their accounts. It showed up on my credit card, but I received no confirmation email and it wasn’t on the account. I navigated the Microsoft website, which was a labyrinth of links and “self help articles”, until I finally found the “chat with a human” option. I was informed that the purchase was stuck in “payment pending” limbo.
We waited. The kids (disappointed) went to dad’s house for his custody time. I continued waiting, checking everywhere I could think of to see if the payment cleared. Then, after three days, I saw that the purchase had been refunded on my credit card. Payment pending failed.
I tried to purchase Minecraft again. This time I got a message right off the bat about not being able to process the payment. I tried putting money on the kid’s account to buy it directly, and again got the same “unable to process payment” error. Tried a different card. Tried a different browser. Headdesk headdesk headdesk. OMFG Microsoft! Just take my money!
I consulted ChatGPT, who suggested that I buy a copy of the game from Walmart then activate it on my child’s account.
So I stood in line at Walmart, clutching a little piece of cardboard with a picture of Minecraft and a $30 price tag, feeling a bit ridiculous for it. Video games have been a purely digital transaction for years now, yet there I was going old-school-but-not-really. I was so anxious that something else would go wrong, and then I’d be stuck trying to get a refund from Walmart.
I was scared to try activating Minecraft right away, so I did other stuff for awhile like exploring Libby. Once I worked up my courage, I sat down and entered the activation code. I probably didn’t breathe until I had confirmation that it had worked.
Aaaaand that was when I realized that Xbox defaulted the child’s account to block all forms of multiplayer, including LAN. I had not expected that … considering that LAN stands for “Local Area Network” which entails existing in the same house using the same wifi so why would it be blocked?
Seriously, you have no idea how hard it is to find the parental control menus. Between Microsoft, Minecraft, and Xbox, I didn’t know which site I needed to be looking under (Xbox, for you other parents out there). Click click click, ask ChatGPT, ask Google. Go crazy. Finally find the settings, check “Allow multiplayer,” and pull up the Minecraft game again. Still blocked. Close game and launcher to see if that needed to be refreshed. Still blocked. Start a single player game on child’s Minecraft, open to LAN, join using my account. Works. Open Bedrock and discover multiplayer works there. Java multiplayer still blocked. Die a little inside and decide to give up for the day.
My dear sweet precious children, you have no idea. You are going to come home and take it for granted that you can now play Minecraft creepypasta mods together, and no one is going to say, “Thanks for scaling that stupid mountain and sacrificing your soul to the Minecraft Gods for us, mom.” Of course that’s what mom did, because that’s what moms do. The kids have no one else who would do that for them.
So yes, ACOTAR, I am carrying the world on my shoulders in my metaphorical winter. Thank you for validating that.
The cherry on top is that I still need to buy one more copy of Minecraft — all of that had been my test run to make sure that I knew what I was doing. At least this time … I know what I’m doing. Sort of. I don’t remember creating the child’s Xbox account. 😅
Anyway, after I finish the ACOTAR series, my soul-sister has a huge list of books for me to read. And I admit that, for whatever reason, having a library card feels insanely liberating.
