SEATTLE — Local dad Kenneth Morris stayed up late playing video games without alerting his eight-year-old son by hiding under his bedsheets, sources confirm.
“I gotta be really sneaky to get away with this,” said Morris. “If my son knows I’m on the Switch, then he’s gonna want to play, and I won’t get any time to myself. So, while he’s brushing his teeth, I hide the Switch in my nightstand. Then, after it’s officially lights-out time, I stand outside his room and whisper his name to make sure he’s really asleep before I start to play. I turn the volume way down so he won’t hear, but you can’t be too safe. Sometimes I hit the buttons too loud and then I have to freeze and listen to make sure he’s not coming down the hall.”
Morris’s son Jesse was quick to clarify that he was aware of his father’s late-night gaming habit.
“Of course I know he brings the Switch to bed,” said the younger Morris. “You think I don’t notice that it’s mysteriously absent from the dock in the morning? Plus, I’m the primary account on the Switch Online family plan. I can see all of his activity. The thing is, as a kid, you’ve got to learn to pick your battles. By letting him get away with something small like this, I help him to build his confidence and independence. If it starts to affect his performance at work, then we’ll sit down to talk about it. Until then, he can think he’s slick.”
Others in the household were less happy with Morris’s nocturnal hobby.
“It’s bad enough that I have to share a room with him,” said Hannah, Morris’s wife. “He’s always leaving his dirty laundry in a pile on the floor and he never makes the bed. Now he’s keeping me up making a little tent out of the comforter so he can play his damn games. I asked him nicely to stop, but he said that if I’m going to stay up reading my Kindle, he can do whatever he wants on his side of the bed. Then I threatened to tell Jesse, but Ken called me a snitch. I’m seriously thinking about moving into my She Shed.”
At press time, Morris expressed excitement for an upcoming weeklong trip to visit his son’s grandparents, because they let him stay up as late as he wants.
