Jenyfer Matthews

I had to get my kids great gifts while I was away – they hardly let me catch my breath at the door before they began pestering me for their presents. And I was kind of excited to give them to them.

I got my son a transformer truck. He’s been asking for a transformer but he’s really a car nut. Perfect. He was in heaven when he saw it. His words in fact were, “you gave me my dream.”

My daughter is a bit trickier because she’s not really a toy child. She’s a sporty girl and though the Dubai airport actually does sell tennis rackets – really – she already has most of the equipment she needs. But I felt pretty clever when I decided to buy her the current craze amongst all her friends – a Tamagotchi.

Little did I know.

I had no real clue what the thing was – aside from the fact that it is small and beeps a lot. The Tamagotchi is a virtual pet. Which means that it can be quite demanding and requires a lot of attention at odd and often inconvenient moments. Much like real children and pets.

My daughter was thrilled and we immediately opened it up and got it going. However the instructions that it came with were all in Arabic. I didn’t think it mattered – she set to pressing buttons and seemed to know what she was about. I let her go for it.

Her pet died within hours. She’s bereft.

So even though I told her I wasn’t going to get involved with the thing and the last thing I need is another project demanding a piece of my time and attention, I have in fact spent the last couple of hours online printing out instruction sheets and tips for the care and feeding of the Tamagotchi. There are so many websites offering information – including parent survival sites – that I’m a little bit scared. What have we gotten into?

As soon as she gets home from school and done her homework we’re going to reset the thing. We’ll see how long it lasts this time…

EDITED TO ADD: I did at least find the all important “pause” function!!