Trading NES games for pizzas

Story time! I’m at home, watching TV with my mom and a Papa Johns ad just reminded me of a funny period where I was trading NES game for pizzas at work.

Years ago, my dad and uncle owned a game store where we carried everything from Odyssey to current gen stuff. One day, a customer came in wearing his Papa Johns manager uniform, a surprise to me as I had no idea there was a Papa Johns nearby. We got to talking and struck a deal where I would trade him NES games every time I ordered lunch. It basically equated to 6 games for a large pizza, plus 2 extra games as a tip.

These particular NES games were all mostly the shitty ones. We kept the rare ones in a different cabinet, so I made out like a villain with this little deal. The whole thing lasted for a good few months, and stopped only because I got sick of Papa Johns.

Telling this tale just made me realize how I basically ran the store on my own after a few years, getting to do what I wanted to do and run things how I wanted. Kind of similar to the way things are now. History repeating, in a lot more ways than I’ve said here. Funny that.