Holy Worrior
Being a kid during the height of the coin-operated video game boom of the early 80's meant that it was inevitable that I would be hooked on video games for life. One of the hilarious features of the Super Nintendo game "Donkey Kong Country," released sometime in the mid-nineties, was the character Cranky Kong. Cranky would moan about how when he was a young video game character he did not have all these fancy moves, nor need them - No Sir! He contented himself with what they had: 2-D environments and flat-screen mazes, a single move, and his considerable "wit." Although even that game is ancient by today's standards, I felt an odd relation to and camraderie with Cranky because I knew exactly what he was talking about. I'm spent hundreds of allowance dollars playing games that would, in the more sophisticated world of 2003, quickly bore just about everyone: case in point, The Wizard of Wor.
Wow, was I ever hooked on this game. My mother made the mistake of allowing me to hold on to some of the money I had received for my birthday, which I'm sure was rooted in her idea of teaching me some responsibility. Obviously, she assumed that the experience of buying a nice gift at the ever-respectable department store - the place where I usually was brought only to search for school clothes - would teach me all sorts of lessons about value of money and the importance of being a smart consumer. And just maybe, daring to hope, just maybe she believed that I might even suggest that I would like to save it, or start - gasp - a savings account!
Of course, being ten, I turned that parental dream to disaster by, after school, hiking two miles - up the large hill near our place, past the imposing block of apartment buildings, past an open field strewn with litter - to the 7-11 store.
It was a holy pilgrimage.
Once inside this veritable palace of delight, once inside this virtual temple devoted childhood treasures - a place that not only sold candy, but had ice "slurpees," and kept 3 or 4 video games in a secluded corner - I made my way to the tantalizing Wizard of Wor video game, reverently dropped a quarter in (a holy sacrafice), and took on the role of Worrior. I tracked down the Burwors and the Worluks. I navigated countless mazes. I tracked the Wizard himself, only to be defeated. Yet, I was a hero preserving this virtual world from unholy destruction. TWENTY FIVE dollars later (which was spent a quarter at a time and took a few hours) I honorably admitted defeat before the more powerful wizard, but not before vowing that I would return to avenge my pride and defend the realm of 7-11 once more.
Of course, once my mom found out that I spent 25 bucks, I had trouble keeping that vow because I was grounded and banned from going to that store ever again. Then, and sometimes now, I have to ask myself: "Seeing as how (especially in 1982) for a poor ten year-old that was really a lot of money, do I regret that?" As Cranky would say, "No Sir!"