I've been a gamer for as long as I can remember. One of my earliest memories is playing Super Mario Bros. at my parent's friends' house on their NES. Later that year I was turning 5, and my mom tells me that I would not shut up about needing a Nintendo. On the morning of my fifth birthday I tore into that package, screaming the entire time. Remember the N64 kid? Yeah, that was me back in 1989 for the Nintendo.



Fast forward a few months. It's ridiculously early in the morning, but my little brother and I are awake and ready for breakfast. We climb up onto the counter to get cereal bowls, and while I was in the cabinet, I saw a shiny... something... in the corner of the cabinet. I reach back for it like the magpie that I was and grabbed a hold of something very familiar... a Nintendo game! I yanked it out and basked in it's shiny golden glory. A gold Nintendo game, hiding in my own house. Hooray!



Me and my brother ran back upstairs, hunger instantly sated by this glorious square gem. The Legend of Zelda. What is that thing? A shield? I pop in the game, and smash start until I get to put my name in. OK... until I get to put 'ASS' in. I started the game and failed miserably. My mind was going a mile a minute. "Why can't I jump? I've gone right, but now there's a dead end. This is all very confusing?!?" By now, my Mom is awake and she comes to wake us up for school, only to be surprised that we were already up. When she comes into the room she asks me what I'm playing, and I tell her about how I found a game and it's GOLDEN! Well, she said, you ruined the surprise... this was supposed to be for Christmas!


This came up when I googled "ruined Christmas". I think it's appropriate.

I couldn't stop thinking about the game at school. What am I supposed to do? How do I play that game? I got home and immediately turned it on. After 10 minutes, I shut it off to tell my parents that the game must be broken. They got out the box and instructions, and my love affair with instruction manuals began there as well. The instructions tell me that this game is filled with secrets that I was tasked with discovering. After this, I progress through the game, and my parents get in on the game too. They spent hours bombing walls like mad men, square by square, while I was in school in order to complete the map we'd made out of grid paper.



I became completely obsessed with the game, and the moment that sticks out in my head as the "start of the affair" is shortly after I get to Death Mountain. I was in school, and I knew my parents were at home trying to make sense of the maze-like labyrinth that was level 9. During the pledge of allegiance I couldn't contain my excitement for the game, and blurted out something like this:

I pledge allegiance
to the game
called Legend of Zelda for the Nintendo
and I want to beat Ganon and beat the game
I hope Mom and Dad can
map the dungeon out, so I can find
the triforce and bring peace for us all



I ad lib'd pretty much that in place of the pledge of allegiance. Luckily, no one heard. This memory marks the beginning of the obsession for me. After school that day I did beat the game, but got stuck in Zelda's chamber. I couldn't get through the fire, and my parents didn't know what to do either! Could I have made it so far, only to lose to fire? Luckily, my older cousin was an avid gamer, and he knew to stab the fire to put it out. At least a hundred years later, the internet invented GameFAQS.com and I never had to almost die in a fire after beating a game again.