Warning: Health Risks Of Game Play

Are you a games person? Is Saturday night games night at your house? Maybe friends come over for a few laughs and a round of poker or couples get together for a rousing game of bridge or possibly you play internet games against people in other countries. Or maybe chess is your game, or crazy eights, Risk or that game where you surgically take the organs out of the mechanical human being without the alarm going off and his nose lighting up. Good for you. Have fun.

But folks should be aware that the act of playing games may pose a health risk for some. Serious symptoms during gameplaying have been noted in clinical tests around the world. And people noticing these themselves should be advised to consider immediately avoid playing with and ban games of any sort from their house, computers and smart phones.

Symptoms may include the spontaneous invention of new swear words, headaches due to repeated head banging, and tooth erosion due to uncontrollable grinding of the jaws. Be warned that continued long term exposure causes some people to act in a way they haven't since childhood: temper tantrums and toilets blocked with foreign objects (i.e. playing cards and Monopoly game pieces). Good friends and loving couples may begin to suddenly detest each other. It is advised to stop playing if your neighbors complain about things like scrabble letters embedded in their aluminum siding or when the fire department doesn't share your pleasure of an evening roasting marshmallows around a burning X-Box console in the middle of the front yard. This is especially recommended when the fire is accompanied by painted, naked bodies doing a war dance (an act also known to prompt more than one call to the police).

Scientists are puzzled at the cause of this phenomena, one that strikes randomly and without gender discrimination. Games themselves do not appear to be the cause but removing them at the first sign of any irritability, discomfort or hair loss may be a good idea.