Game Over.

Megan writes a great anecdote about her mother's very non-motherly habit:

Around lunchtime my mother would pick me up, take me out to lunch in the local mall food court, then drag me down to the end of the mall where Aladdin's Castle, video game haven, stood, nearly invisible. She would then proceed to play Pac-man, Miss Pac-man, Klax, Joust and anything of the not-shooter not-quite-violent genre. She kicked ass. I kid you not. Held top scores all the time...

Which, of course, reminds me of a certain video-game related memory.

When I was eleven or twelve, my parents either bought or were given a full-size Super Pac-man arcade consule from my dad's work. Kept in our garage, the big box of fun was probably the only reason I had any friends.

Before you start asking "what sort of spoiled child gets their own arcade game," let me just emphasize that I was no Ricky Stratton.

The purchase of the machine was some sort of fluke that, to this day, seems like a weird non-memory. I didn't have a Nintendo but instead relied on PC games for entertainment. And, for the most part, these games were usually the educational ones that either my dad got from work (Mavis Beacon, Life & Death, Chessmaster) or were a staple in every classroom (Carmen San Diego, Oregon Trail, Lemonade Stand).

Hours were spent in our cold garage as I mastered the moves that would eventually allow me to reach level eleven (of sixteen, I belive).

But alas, I never reached the final level because my parents sold the machine before our move to Northern Californa.

And, you know what's funny? To this day, I can actually remember the exact path and the needed hand motions that I would use on each level.

Now that's certainly a useful bit of information in my repository of knowledge.

Comments

[megan]

My parents' next door neighbors have the most rumpussie rumpus room I've ever seen. Pool, ping-pong, full sized ice hocky, two arcade pinball, and an arcade stand-up original, still working Space Invaders. I always envied their kids. But give my mom a pac man and we'd have never eaten!

[shauny]

Heheh, great stuff :) I loved Carmen Sandiego! In fact, still do. Wonder if you can download it somewhere. Hmmm hmmm.