It always smells like shoes.

I don’t know why, but O’Hare to me always smells like the Keds I had when I was five. It’s not a horrible smell – not smelly socks. It’s the smell of well work rubber soles and stretched canvas. It’s oddly comforting. I find a seat at the bar of the Red Carpet Club. I fire up my laptop, prepared to waste an hour deleting email and consuming random information which I will quickly forget.

I nod to the gentleman at the end of the bar. He’s perhaps 50, with the sandy brown hair and carefully shaven face of a terminal businessman. His laptop is open, but his eyes aren’t fixed in the glaze of information consumption. They’re darting around the screen. I look at his hands. His right hand on a small, silver Microsoft Optical mouse. The movements are minimal – there’s no rapidfire clicking. His left hand hovers in a claw over the WASD keys. Fingers dart methodically to the function keys at the top of the cramped Lenovo keyboard.

I’m sure of it. He’s playing World of Warcraft.

Just this once, I wish for a real phone.

The conversation had not been pleasant. The source of my anger is unimportant. The source is rarely as important as that horrible, shaky, bile-fueled feeling. That rude sense that my kidneys will eject themselves and black coagulated blood will eject from my torso burning holes into the asphalt as they land.

I long to slam the phone into the cradle, to create the rattle and crack of breaking plastic. As it is, I can only reach vigorously with the cursor and press harder than necessary on the left mouse-button, banishing skype into a shaking demon's hell.

My computer, oblivious to my state of mind, responds with a lollipop-guild “boing.” A dialog pops up, asking me to rate the call quality. There is no button for "hydrochloric."

The rage deepens. I launch a game.

"OK. So, here we go."

She's sitting there on the carpet, her eyes fixed on the black pieces in front of her. She's got a patented "smiling because I'm with dad" smile on, which I know will get me in serious trouble when she's 15.

I move my pawn to E4.

She sits, carefully considering her many options. Five seconds pass. Ten. She moved her A pawn to 6.

I have no idea what to say. It's not a move that would ever even occur to me. It's way out on the edge of the board. It's blocking her light-bishop. It was at that moment I realized I have no idea how to teach someone a game.

With the passage of Gary Gygax, a collective heaving of breast could be felt across the thin silver astral cord connecting us together, bridging the gap of our collective antisocial angst. My inbox and AIM rang, two asynchronous bells, throughout the day.

"Did you hear? The DM is dead," they implored. One after another after another. Skype pinged. The phone rang. The red circle around the webcam lit up over and over and over again. Everyone shocked into silence. And I understand. I feel my own pain. A certain hollowness. An age. A sense of dying cell by cell. But that's not what makes me sad. What makes me sad is how little I cared yesterday.

Every time the word "consolidation" (or even "EA") is in a headline, the gamer reaction seems to immediately be "this is horrible." It's as if we - the deep geek gamer community - have decided that big = bad without equivocation. It's the same mentality that assumes all indie movies will be good, and all unsigned bands are somehow more pure and therefore better.

I have a low tolerance for this.

I am surrounded by swirling light. The world around me changes from the drab grays of the salt flats to a shimmering orange. The change lasts only a second, but it's real. I feel stronger. Power runs through my veins, sparking up and down my arms, sparking from my outstretched fingertips. I open and close my left hand a few times, testing the tendons. I run my right hand through the mane of AngryBoy. The bear shakes his head, purring with a bass that shakes the hardpan. I feel it through my feet.

It's going to be a good night. But I am alone. I call to the heavens, invoking the mysteries.

"Ding 32," I howl, a barbaric yawp. I wait for the acknowledgment, the nod from god that confirms my presence, my importance, my existence.

It comes.

"Gratz."

A few weeks ago, I came back home to World of Warcraft. I'm not necessarily proud of this. WoW doesn't even make my top 3 MMOs of all time (Lord of the Rings Online, Neocron, Star Wars Galaxies). But no matter how often I stray, WoW has all the right ingredients to be addictive. Addictive in a good way. The combination of work, rewards, power and society are just right for scratching that particular itch.

WoW is just the latest in an endless rotation of serial addiction. For weeks at a time, occasionally months, I will get into a groove with a game. I'll think about it in the corners of my day. I'll bathe in the anticipatory light of when I will play next, and revel in the reality. This is a good thing.

Which is why I was particularly annoyed to discover a study last week suggesting that this wonderful fugue isn't the result of any predilection of mine towards gaming. It's just because I happen to be male.

"Shawn, honestly, I just can't do it."

It's only an instant message, so he has no idea the true agony in my virtual voice as I say these words.

"What kind of a gamer do you think you are?" he challenges. "Just use the quick save and put the damn game to bed. You're practically finished! You've already done all the hard work."

He's right. So I knuckle down and do it. I finish the last 17 minutes of Half Life 2: Episode 2.

"Is this your bag sir?"

I smile. "Yep!" One of my secrets to travel zen is to be unrelentingly cheerful, regardless of how dour my internal mood or how depressing my plight. The TSA dude seemed on edge.

"Can we take a look inside?" he asks, as if "no" would be an acceptable answer and they'd just send me on my way.

"No problem, I'm sure you just picked up my phone or something."

He opens the bag. He looks at me. He looks in the bag again. He looks at me. One at a time, he removes objects for investigation.

Best Buy during the holidays is a special kind of hell. Swarms of soccer moms trailing toddlers, looking for the new game of the year. Overweight dads butt-glued into recliners in front of NASA-style walls of aggressive televisions, commenting on the silent football games arrayed before them. Hordes of middle aged couples making dreadfully misguided computer purchases.

But the best part of the Best Buy holiday extravaganza are the demo kids. And it was one of these kids who showed me something I will never see again.

Guitar Hero 3. "Through the Fire and the Flames." Expert.