It had not been one of the boy's better days. They had strayed into an unfamiliar part of the forest and got lost. After dark, the monkeys attacked. Billy nearly died. Bobby used all his arrows. Then, Brian wasted his last spell on a cave he thought had trolls in it but didn't. At present, they were in the dungeon of the evil wizard, Zarquon.

To make matters worse, Aunt Agatha was supposed to have been watching them. My cousin Tim and his wife Ellen were taking a second honeymoon and had asked the boy's Grandma to baby-sit. They had warned her that this might happen and she was all in a fluster when she called.

"Are they conscious?", I asked.

"Barely.", she replied.

"Do they have a pulse?"

"I didn't check.", she admitted.

"Breathing?"

"Shallow."

"Pupils?"

"Dilated."

"Are they pale and clammy?"

"Both.", she confirmed. "Should I call the paramedics?"

"Nah. Just hang on.", I told her. "I'll be right over." Agatha had never had this problem with her kids but I knew a few tricks from dealing with my own.

"They're down in the family room", she said, grasping my hands as she opened the door. "Hurry!"

I paused at the basement stairs. From below came flashing grey-blue lights, the sounds of battle and the smells of fear and unwashed children. They didn't notice me as I crept down the stairs and didn't hear me when I cupped my hands around their ears and yelled their names. They were in much worse shape than I had expected.

Billy lay propped on his elbows. Bobby and Brian sat cross-legged, slouching forward. Their rigid, little hands were locked around their controllers. Their bodies rocked and twitched. They spoke in tongues. Puddles of drool soaked the carpet beneath them.

Normally, Tim and Ellen are quite judicious in rationing their kid's access to video games; limiting play times to no more than thirty minutes a day and banning them completely on school nights. It was now late afternoon and the boys had been at it since mid-morning.

Once upon a time, when Tim and I were young, we had been given the task of baby-sitting his little sister. Instead, we accidentally sawed the legs off the china closet. Thirty years later I can still see him, slumped over the kitchen table with his head in his arms, dreading what would happen when his Mom got home.

I thought of that incident when I returned from the basement to find his Mom slumped over HIS kitchen table, dreading what would happen when HE got home.

"I'm a terrible Grandmother!", she sobbed. "I've turned my little darlin's into slobbering zombies! When Timmy and Ellen get home, I'll be... (sniff!)... I'll be... BANISHED FOREVER!"

"The boys will be fine", I lied, "so don't worry. All we have to do is find something that's more important to them than video games... and tempt them with it."

It was a simplistic approach and I knew it. The fact was that few things meant more to these boys than video games. But, while they may have turned into zombies, they were still mostly-human and might therefore respond to at least one of "The Four F's": Food, Faith, Sex and Force.

"I know!", cried Agatha, "I'll bake cookies!"

Without realizing it, Agatha had stumbled upon the first of the four 'F's. Soon, she had whipped up a bowlful of her famous chocolate-chip/butterscotch oatmeal cookie dough and slid the first couple dozen in the oven. We stood at the top of the stairs and talked loudly to one another about how much we loved these cookies, about what a large and perfect batch this would be, and about how we certainly wouldn't leave any for the boys unless they came up and asked us for some. No response.

When the first sheet came out of the oven, we sampled them with great ceremony at the top of the stairs. When there was still no response, we took the entire second sheet to the basement, placed it beneath each of their chins and used a tea towel to waft the aroma directly into their nostrils. Nuthin'!

While it had had no effect on the boys, the smell of Agatha's cookies did manage to get the attention of her next door neighbor, Carl. The older I get, the more apt I am to accept the fact that elderly people still think about romance. I do believe that Carl has always had such thoughts about Agatha and since Uncle Ernie passed, has taken advantage of every opportunity to come visit.

"Ya' bakin' cookies over here?", he asked, as his blocky, crewcut head stuck itself through the kitchen window. "Need help?"

At seventy-one, Carl still had the bearing of a United States Marine. He'd been too young for World War Two, but had spent the late 1940's protecting the Pacific from Communism.

"I saw alot of that when I was stationed on Jimanii atoll", he said, when we described the boy's condition. "The natives always had problems with people turning into zombies. Their Shaman had this dance he did that seemed to work.

Desperate, we agreed to let Carl perform his Shaman dance on the boys. Naturally, we were short on alligator teeth, toucan beaks, shark blood and other items that were essential to the ceremonial costume, but we substituted as best we could.

Twenty minutes later, Carl was in the basement, stomping and chanting. He wore no clothes except the lei and grass skirt Agatha and Ernie had brought back from their Hawaiian vacation. Native symbols, painted in green and blue food color, covered his furry, grey chest. He wore a floral centerpiece on his head and a walnut toilet seat around his neck.

It was a scene that would have attracted news crews from the national networks, but got no response from the boys. Their eyes remained riveted on their game, their drool dripping, uninterrupted.

"Sometimes it takes a day or two to work.", Carl mumbled as he mounted the stairs.

We didn't have a day or two. I brushed past him and returned to the basement. It was time to try the most persuasive, powerful force known to men: Sex.

"Hey guys!", I cried, standing in front of the TV, "Change the channel. I think the XFL Cheerleader tryouts are on."

"OK, how about this: If you turn your video game off right now, I'll show you how to jimmy the cable box to get the Naughty-Nitey Playmate Channel!" When this generous offer got no response, I got scared.

The boys ranged in age from eleven to fifteen, but trust me: Guys are guys. Even at eleven, we want to see breasts. And the lure of real breasts is always greater than that of pictures of breasts. It was time to break out the heavy artillery. I positioned myself strategically by the basement window.

"Bryan!", I called. "Remember when your Mom made you wash your mouth out with soap for what you said about your old babysitter? 'Bodacious something-or-others', wasn't it? Well she's home from college. I can see her over in her front yard. She'd doing jumping jacks... and cartwheels... and I don't think she's wearing any underwear!

The boys responded with a wild outburst but not to the cartwheels. In frustration, Carl had stomped down the steps and thrown a breaker. Suddenly, the basement was filled with gloom and wailing. The boy's game had vanished into the ether. If a far-sighted palsy patient had been performing emergency appendectomies on them with a spoon, their reactions could not have been more violent. It was real Old Testament with 'gnashing of teeth' and everything!

It took about ninety minutes from the time we duct-taped them to their beds 'til the time they finally moaned themselves to sleep. Agatha, Carl and I were celebrating with coffee and cookies in the kitchen. Our discussion topic was: 'What can be done to curb the detrimental effects of video games?'

Agatha favored legislation, but Carl and I had no faith in politicians' solutions. I favored starting a false rumor that video games caused eye tumors, but they thought that was a bit extreme. Carl's idea, though, was subtle and brilliant and it had worked in the past.

To demonstrate, he went to the closet and retrieved a hopelessly-outdated video game that the boys had long-since abandoned. Carefully, almost reverently, he placed it in a plastic zipper bag and wrote on it, "Collector's Item: $750.00".

This strategy has been tremendously successful at keeping kids away from comic books and baseball cards. If Carl's idea catches on, kids will soon be no more likely to play with a video game than they will be to read a rare 'Captain Marvel' or trade a Mazerosky for a DiMaggio.