"Well, honey, this seems like an interesting game," said Alex's mother, "but you're kind of talking about it like it's real."
"But, I, uh..." Alex realized he didn't have a good response.
His mother noticed something sitting next to the computer. "Is that the bowl you had ice cream out of last night?"
"Yeah," he admitted.
"We've talked about this. Take it downstairs to the kitchen, please, and put it in the dishwasher."
With a half-sigh, Alex got up from the computer chair, grabbed the bowl and spoon, and took them out of the room.
His mother realized she probably should be getting down to the kitchen herself to start dinner, but she decided to sit down and relax for a couple minutes. She took the computer chair, kicking off the low-heeled pumps she'd been wearing all day in her capacity as a bank vice-president, reaching down and rubbing her feet.
She looked at the monitor. Imagine, a computer program that can change people -- even make it so everyone thinks they've always been that way, she thought. "If you don't like any of the preset options," Alex had told her, "there's even this input box where you can type whatever you want."
She chortled a bit as she turned to the computer and typed, "Alex Logan always remembers to take dishes back to the kitchen right when he's done eating." But then she thought, Nah, might as well do the impossible as long as I'm fantasizing. She deleted most of what she'd typed and instead wrote, "Alex Logan is an expert cook who loves to make dinner every night." She pressed Enter, the text disappeared, and nothing else apparent happened. She would have thought there'd be something else to the game, but maybe she'd missed something. Oh, well -- she put her shoes back on, got up, and headed for the kitchen.