Last Tuesday, at about 9:30PM, I got a phone call from the local PD. My son was one of four teenage boys in a vehicle that was pulled over for suspiciously obeying all traffic laws. The police did a routine search of the vehicle, and while they did not find any drugs, alcohol, or weapons, they did find a paper grocery bag containing a Purator and over a dozen paladin minions. My son admitted that it was all his. They made him stomp on the cards and fling them off into the woods, gave him a warning, and called me.

While I am grateful that they didn't cite him for braindead gameplay in a school zone, which they easily could have, I have to admit that I feel like I am responsible for this in some way. As a father, one likes to imagine that his kids are somehow better than those other kids that you hear about messing with mana cheating and crap, but that is not always the case. There were warning signs with my son, and not only did I miss them, I dismissed them.

In all honesty, he has probably been netdecking since he was 12. I remember one time I lent him my credit card for the all-night pack opening he was participating in at his dirty friend's fireside gathering over in the shantytown across the railroad tracks, and they were all playing pirate warrior.

"But Dad! It's free wins! There's no other way to win!"

How could I say no? He would be ridiculed and that damage to his ego just was not worth it to me at the time. I let him stay.

Fast-forward a couple of years, and I catch him sneaking a pair of Disco Mauls into the house. When I confronted him about it, he was ready with his excuses: "It's for mech paladin, I promise." "You really need them for the burst damage." "Lots of people play pally”, etc.

I let it go.

But then other things started happening: his grades started falling, his vocabulary shrank, he started wearing a silver hand and calling 1/1 minions "dude," he lost interest in girls and hygiene. He stopped watching MarkMcKz, started the World of Warcraft free trial to get the level 20 Liadrin skin, and I swear to God that I once heard the voice of The Countess coming from his room. One of his friends even told me that he told a joke about "The Cooking of Stratholme" at school.

I ignored all of this, but I justified it at the time because Reddit is killing Third-Party Applications (And Itself). I had to keep up with the John Oliver pictures.

One night, however, I caught him red-handed. I walked into his room and saw that he was playing Mech Paladin, but something was off. He was holding a Sanguine Soldier and a Sinful Sous Chef, it was blindingly bad. I reprimanded him.

"Did I raise a moron? You'll mess up your radar detector draws, let me fix it."

He just grumbled. I walked over to do it for him, and he attacked me. He hit me in the jaw, and then started pounding me in the face when I was on the ground. I managed to subdue him with some secret ninja moves I learned in my special forces days and found, to my horror, that he was not even playing Mech Pally; he was playing Pure! I zip-tied him to his bed and ransacked his room looking for his account password. He laughed maniacally, and said I would never guess it. I looked him dead in the eyes and said: "You have brought dishonor on our family. You will not move from this spot until you tell me what it is." He stared back and did not say a word. I punched him in his stupid face and ransacked the house looking for it. I found it hours later scribbled on the inside of a notebook with pictures of the Horn of the Windlord plastered all over it. I dusted his Paladin collection right there, went up to my son's room brandishing the empty card manager, and said, "Never again." I left him tied up there for three days to prove my point.

Six months passed without further incident. He straightened up, quit checking HSReplay, all that shit. I thought I had done my job, but no. I just gave him more of an incentive to hide his habits.

Then this happened, and the proof is incontrovertible: my son is a racist. And now I am at this crossroads: is my son a racist despite me, or because of me? Did I give him my credit card too early? Was that diamond "Rin, Orchestrator of Doom" on his 6th birthday really for him, or for me? Am I to blame for all of this?

No. It's all his fault. All hail control warrior, my son can die in a ditch.