How my girlfriend broke my Xbox 360

At a glance, my girlfriend seems to be your typical attractive girl with crippling self-esteem issues who’s happy to settle for less, but don’t let that fool you. My girlfriend is in fact a lizard-person. My proof? She’s cold blooded. She devours heat, complaining incessantly about the temperature, and wraps herself in multiple blankets whilst poking me with her icy extremeties to coopt my body warmth.

If we’ve got an hour to kill before going somewhere, she’ll likely engross herself in a book, whereas I’ll pick up my Xbox 360 controller.

I love my Xbox 360, but I’m aware of its foibles. Every console has its idiosyncrasies, like my PS2’s penchant for chewing up 20% of the discs I put into it, or my NES’s occasional hissy-fits in which it refused to play the cartridge in the slot until I blew into it, even though Dad told me not to. In the case of the Xbox 360, it’s the constant threat that it will succumb to sudden-console-death syndrome. The lingering dread of those flashing red lights make you truly appreciate the precious time you have with your console, and all the more willing to make concessions to ensure its reliable operation.

In my case, this ‘concession’ meant setting a room aside for the 360 in which there was no heating. This past January, there was snow literally piled up to the window, and yet the heating remained off. I sat in front of the TV, teeth chattering, deriving great enjoyment from Borderlands, all the while holding my breath lest the resulting exhalation-fog upset my accuracy.

Of course, when lizard-girl spent two weeks at my place, and I wanted to play games, and she wanted to read, it made sense that we could do both activities on the same couch, and ignore one another in a way that felt like quality time (I acknowledged her during loading screens). After about twenty minutes of struggling to turn pages with her quavering, frozen digits, she made known her objection to my lifestyle choices. I told her that turning on the heat would kill my Xbox. She told me that she’d be in bed, bundled up with her book until I turned the heat on.

I relented. The heat was turned on. Lizard girl resumed her position on the couch, and we had a pleasant evening. I began to enjoy combining the modern conveniences of central heating and electrical appliances, and continued to warm the room in the temptress's absence. Gradually, my concerns about the console's health ebbed away, and all was well in the kingdom.

Until four months later:



One "I can't live like this" conversation is all it took for her to destroy the only thing I truly loved.