Communist Plumbers, Fowl and the 5-0, Oh My!

In my family's original house in Spring Branch, two of my good friends across the street, Matt and Scott, were the first on the block to obtain the highly acclaimed Nintendo Entertainment System, NES for short. This was huge. It was my first experience, outside of Pacman at the local BBQ eatery, with a real video game system. Although I'm sure they had more games, the only two I can remember playing with them were Duck Hunt and Mario Bros. Duck Hunt was revolutionary in my eyes. Having a little plastic gun to shoot a few moving pixels on the screen was monumental back in the day. I mentioned it earlier, but Pacman was really my first and only foray into the gaming universe at the time. The only video game I knew of was one in which your little yellow dot with an insatiable appetite for smaller dots, ran away from techni-colored ghosts looking to consume you. The premise of this game I will never understand, but as a child, you don't think of such things. You just take it for what its worth. But with Duck Hunt, man oh man, don't get me started!

Although I always came over to try and get as much NES play time as possible, we always ended up going outside and playing on their trampoline or swings. It frustrated me to no end why they never wanted to play video games. Why go outside in the heat when you can blow up ducks inside in the A/C? Soon enough, though, I was fortunate enough to play on my own console, the newly updated Super NES. Evidently it was the same as the original NES, but Super. My first and only game for a while (those cartridges were expensive!) was Super Mario Bros. Jumping around on evil flying turtles to save a princess used up much of my time. Because I was the first on the block to get the Super NES, which my parents so nicely purchased for me (for Christmas I think), all of my friends came to my house. This was very strange to me, because I had always ventured out to their houses for play time. Now I was the envy of the block, the one in control. One of my friends was a small, red-headed kid named Patrick. Supposedly he was a little jealous twerp that was always trying to antagonize me. This according to my parents, of course. I was too busy playing my SNES to notice. I no longer have that console any more. I traded years ago for a newer console. It's too bad, I had a lot of good memories with that Nintendo.

My parents were very upset with this Patrick fellow and with what he had to say. Patrick wasn't my friend, but rather a friend of a friend. I was too young to notice, but apparently he was a rude kid and always made fun of me and repeatedly noted that I would never be able to get the next console. Too bad for him I was the one with the Super NES and didn't give half a s%^t. I no longer keep intact with Patrick or our mutual friend. It's probably for the better, any way. He would more than likely try and patronize me for not having a Playstation 3 or something.

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