I don’t know what you do when you get struck with COVID cabin fever, but I start reading Choose Your Own Adventure (CYOA) books.

For a CYOA, I like to take at least two passes. In the first pass, I make bad choices and see what happens because that’s fun. In the second pass, I try to make good choices to find the best possible outcome. Let’s see what happens…

The beginning

So, we’re in our living sphere for all of two seconds when we get called in for an emergency. We are part of the Zondo Quest Group II. Which immediately brings up the questions – why do we use Roman numerals and what happened to Zondo Quest Group I…?! Our mission is to combat the Evil Power Master who is out there trying to destroy shit.

We start complaining to our boss, Rendoxoll, about why we have to work so hard, and our boss basically tells us to STFU and get on with it. I appreciate that even in sci-fi CYOA they are preparing the children for their future work lives. Our boss is apparently some kind of a mechanical thing with soft squishy plastic hands. I’m not liking where that is going at all though…

Anyway, then we go to gossip with our coworker, Flppto, about the situation and he says some weird shit about how it would be interesting to be molecularized. So, we know we for sure gotta keep an eye on this bitch because he could be up to no good.

We drop into the research chamber and Rendoxoll is all flipped out because the Rimpoche Team and the Baba Ram Team are missing. Which like, what up Rendoxoll, why did we just drop in here then without any warning? You didn’t know that shit ahead of time or what? WTF man?

But Flppto is super flippant about it (possibly where he gets his name from) and Rendoxoll gives him a real tongue-lashing. So they are for sure not on good terms. I also have to point out that we are sitting in “foam-jelly” chairs. I envision this is something like a bean bag chair filled with Jell-o, which I could be into because maybe it’s like space memory foam.

And now we get to our first choice…

CYOA Round 1 – Make “bad” choices

We have three choices. We can go with Rendoxoll, stay in the chamber and have other teammates search (real coward move, come on!), or we can go with Flppto. 

Clearly Flppto is a real asshole, so we’re gonna go with him.

For whatever reason, in order to go on this search and rescue mission, we have to be miniaturized, and become the size of rice. Not gonna lie, I’m not seeing the advantage of this, but I’m reassured from the picture that our clothes also miniaturized along with us.

Flppto finds some food wrappers from the Baba Ram’s lunch. They had tuna salad sandwiches. I doubt that’s relevant, but it’s nice to see there are other lovers of tuna out there. On the wrappers, there are some symbols.

We have two options - try to decode the marks or say they're pointless. 

Bad decision is to say they’re pointless, so we will not decode the marks.

We hear a humming sound and ask Flppto if he knows what it is. He gives us this super condescending answer about how it’s ants humming baby ants to sleep. Ok, whatever, dude, you don’t have to be such an ass about it!

Then there is a voice in the chamber telling us that the other teams are prisoners of the Ant People and so are we. So yeah, I’m really regretting that I’m the size of rice for no fucking reason right now.

The Ant People paralyze us with some paralyzing ray and tell us they took care of Rendoxoll. Which is interesting, because you’d really think a mechanized being with squishy hands could have handled some ants, but I guess not. We faint and wake up hours later in a small chamber tied to Flppto.

When we wake up, Flppto says he can untie the knots and asks if we should try to escape. We say no for some reason and then start talking about food again – pizza, scrambled eggs, cheeseburgers, and tuna sandwiches. Which like… pizza and burgers, sure. Clearly they have some thing about tuna sandwiches in this place, so ok. But why do scrambled eggs make the list? Weird.

We fall asleep, apparently without even asking Flppto to untie us. So, we were really not thinking ahead because how you gonna sleep tied to this guy? We wake up to the sounds of the squishes of the Baba Ram team who apparently communicate through squishing. There’s a lot of squishiness in this adventure. Anyway, the Baba Rams say they escaped with the help of aphids.

Apparently, the aphids are trying to launch some kind of rebellion because the Ant People are real asshats who are just using the aphids for their own benefit. All of a sudden, Rendoxoll rocks up out of nowhere with the Rimpoches and orders us back to the research chamber.

We can obey the command or we can help the aphids with their rebellion.

Hrmmm… I think the bad decision would be to abandon the aphids who tried to help us, so that is what we will do! Peace out, suckers!

The aphid leader pretty much looks at us like we are some lowlife fuckers, but accepts this and lets us go. We battle our way back to the research chamber, but when we get there Flppto is gone. We tell Rendoxol, but he’s basically like — too bad, so sad, time to embiggen ourselves — which is pretty much expected based on the earlier tongue-lashing he gave Flppto.

Our choices are to go back for Flppto or obey orders.

Flppto was kind of a dick anyway, right? Obey orders it is!

We stand there ready to embiggen. Flppto runs out of the anthill tunnel. No harm, no foul, eh!? We definitely don’t need to tell him about how we were gonna leave him behind. As soon as we are back to normal size, Rendoxoll is asking for volunteers to go on duty again immediately.

We can volunteer or keep quiet.

Well… you know Rendoxoll… we just miniaturized and had the paralyzing ray on us…. And we got captured and had to fight Ant People and like… is a person gonna get some hazard pay or overtime or some shit? No?

We gonna keep quiet.

Rendoxoll gets super pissed that no one volunteers and bleeps all crazy and stuff, but eventually lets us go to sleep.

The End!

I’m not gonna lie… I’m kind of disappointed with this round. It felt like we got off pretty easy….

CYOA Round 2 – Make “good” choices

We have three choices. We can go with Rendoxoll, stay in the chamber and have other teammates search (real coward move, come on!), or we can go with Flppto.

Ok, so this time we are trying to make the choices that will get us to the best possible ending. We will go with Rendoxoll.

This time we set off on our mission with Flppto and Rendoxoll. Again, we’re in the research lab looking at the lunch of the missing Baba Ram team. We observe a distinct lack of crumbs in their sandwich wrappers, which we find strange. Stranger still, this time there is no mention that the sandwiches in question were in fact tuna fish!

We immediately want to turn on the miniaturizer but Rendoxoll suggests we search first.

We can scan the area or miniaturize immediately.

Missing team? You gotta search for clues, come on!

We head off to the supply room alone to pick up the handy dandy laser scanner, but when we get back, Rendoxoll and Flppto are gone. The guards tell us that they did not see anyone leave the room!

Do we investigate the research chamber or stay out of it for now?

Oh man… this is where it gets tricky. Sometimes making a bold choice in CYOA pays off, but sometimes it’s the kind of hubris that leads to your downfall! I don’t think Rendoxoll and Flppto would have miniaturized without us so something bad must have happened. We won’t be the fool that hears a noise and heads down into the basement! Let’s stay out.

We close the door and head back to our room. Along the way we hear a scratching that gets louder and louder and then BAM! We’re fucked! The Evil Power Master obliterates us! WTF!! Didn’t see that one coming!!

Round 2 – Reboot

Ok, let’s go just one step back and investigate the research chamber.

We start investigating and are basically immediately miniaturized because the machine has been set to some automatic miniaturizing schedule, which is not good. This time we are the size of a bread crumb, which I guess is an upgrade from a grain of rice?

We’re in danger of being further miniaturized when a trio of ants comes up and tosses us one to the other. They’re squeaking and crackling and making happy sounds. But… are they happy because they are helping us or because they wanna eat us?!

We still have the laser scanner on us. Do we use it as a weapon or give up and go with them as a prisoner?

This is a tough one. If we go with them as a prisoner, we’re out of the room and don’t get miniaturized again. But, then we’re their prisoner. But but, being their prisoner means we will probably end up with the rest of our people and hopefully the ants will be too dumb to know we have our laser scanner and we can use it later… Orrrrrrrr is this a time to fight….?

Fight fight fight!! Laser scanner here we go!!! PS – I’m just going to call it a “laser” from now on because the writer probably just called it a laser scanner instead of a laser gun because it’s a kid’s book, but like, wtf is a scanner gonna do to help us?

So apparently instead of using the laser right then and there, we take it from our side holster and hide it under our shirt for later use. Luckily, the ants don’t seem to notice this even though they are carrying us through some crack and outside toward an anthill.

Our choice is once again to use the laser as a weapon or to see what's inside the anthill. 

Hrmmm…. at this point we are still the size of a bread crumb and now we are outside the facility. If we use the laser now, it seems like we’ll fuck ourselves because we’ll just be ass out stuck outside the lab. Not to mention that we haven’t even figured anything out yet.

Hold onto your asses, we’re going into the anthill!

Alright, so the ant brings us into some storehouse and dumps our raggedy asses there. We collapse tired and frightened. When we wake up, Rendoxoll asks if it’s us and we give it some sarcastic ass answer. Rendoxoll tells us that is not becoming of a Zondo Quest Team member and firmly reprimands us. There is something very familiar about this interaction to me. Perhaps because that was pretty much my entire childhood.

Anyway….Rendoxoll breaks through the wall so he is now in the room with us. It tells us that this place is interesting but doesn’t have much to do with overcoming the Evil Power Master, which is pretty much a clue that we fucked up our choices somewhere along the way and are in a side plot. We are likely to end up dead or back at the lab having accomplished nothing. Damn!

Flppto isn’t with Rendoxoll. We ask where Flppto is and Rendoxoll is basically like – fuck that guy, I have a plan. And honestly I’m starting to feel a little bad for Flppto. He seemed like an asshole in the beginning, but damn if he isn’t just getting abandoned left and right out here.

Our option is to ask Rendoxoll about his plan or to say we must search for Flppto.

Here’s the thing – this space-being Rendoxoll is our boss, sure, but it’s out here calling us a “puny, short-lived, fragile Earthling” like we couldn’t laser its ass to smithereens. We don’t need to take that shit! We’re going to search for Flppto.

Aaaaand, we hit another premature end to our adventure. Wah wah wahhhhhhhhh. Turns out that the miniaturizer was still set to automatic and embiggens us back up so that we all come bursting out of the anthills back to our regular size and we return to work.

And we still haven’t had battle with the Evil Power Master! So frustrating!! Ok, so we’ll try one more time, but we know from Rendoxoll telling us this whole business didn’t have much to do with the Evil Power Master that we’ll need to do back a couple more choices at least.

Round 3 – Attempt to find the Evil Power Master!

Ok, so I can’t help but think that this whole tuna sandwich thing holds the key to this shit. There were marks on the wrappers that we dismissed in the first Round. I think it’s time to go back and decipher them!

It takes Flppto and us seven minutes to decipher the message which reads:

We are in the grip of the Evil Power Master. HELP!

Luzinia

Oh shiiiiiiiiiiiiit! Looks like we finally got ourselves some action! So we have no idea who Luzinia is but there is conveniently a half-dead ant who gives us the goods with its last breath. Looks like our team went into the Kingdom of Zom to help the ants fight the Evil Power Master.

Our choices are to embiggen ourselves so we can get weapons or proceed on to find the Kingdom of Zom. 

I just feel like we’re finally on the cusp of the real shit here! Going to go get weapons is the kind of thing that ends up sidetracking us from the real deal. Let’s go to Zom!!!

Off we go into the world of the ant people, but we don’t get far before we have to choose between a series of tunnels.

We can choose the tunnel with the reddish glow, the yellowish glow, or the whitish glow.

This is tough because it seems all up to chance. Red is the color of like – stop, blood, danger. Except for when it’s like – sexy, love, enchilada sauce. Yellow is the color of pee, but also the sun. And white could be like the stark light of an operating room or a George Michael song. So it’s a real toss up. I’m feeling the reddish glow today.

The reddish glow is apparently made from sunlight hitting a ruby. It’s used to light up the tunnels, which we find out as we meet up with a patrol of warrior ants. The head ant asks if we are part of the Zondo Quest Team so it looks like we are finally getting into the mix!

This ant tells us that Luzinia is the queen ant and ruler of the Kingdom of Zom and her and all our buddies are prisoners of the Evil Power Master. She says:

Some say the Evil Power Master will never give up until he destroys the universe. Others say all he really wants is fame. You can do nothing. Nothing. Do you hear?

Jesus, that just strikes a little too close to home now, doesn’t it…?

We get to a table with four objects on them and a note. The note says that we must pick one and leave the room or the Mid-Evil Power Master who is the Second-in-Command for the Evil Power Master will destroy Luzinia and everything else. Apparently, we have a chance if we are clever. The four items are:

1. A sword without a hilt
2. A golden rope
3. A magnifying glass
4. An empty book — nothing but blank pages

Do we pick the sword, rope, magnifying glass or book?

Fuck! This is the problem. I’m not clever at all! So I cheated and chose them all and of course they were all dead ends except the last one I picked – the sword. Here we go sword!

So we grab the sword without a hilt and it immediately cuts us. Which is like, yeah, of course that happens! That’s why I didn’t want to pick it! But apparently this sword is blood-activated, so once we bleed all over it, it starts hovering and talking and says it will bring us to Luzinia.

The sword leads us to a room where the queen ant and our teammates are all bound and gagged. Also — there is THE EVIL POWER MASTER! The sword goes apeshit on him and defeats him. Everyone is freed and is expected to get their asses right back to work.

I suppose that’s yet another good lesson for children to learn about their future – recognition for good work is often hard to come by, my friends!