I'm late 20's, have glasses and a portly belly. Do I look like I need any help?

When did games shops become fucking crèches?



You wander in and your instantly surrounded by an army of screaming, wailing fetus'...feti...fetuses....fuck it...little people, with their tiny little faces that you just want to kick, and their grubby little fingers and freakishly short legs! All clamoring and running around, getting all in my way.

Now, I'm not saying that I have a right to be there and they don't, but at least I behave mysel...Wait...what percentage of games these days are under 18, anyway? Maybe they don't have a right to be there...sneaky little fuckers.


So, I'm trying to get in to the games shelf, so I can see what's there, and not only are these tiny monstrosities running under my feet and preventing me from getting in to the lower shelves, but their parents...oh god, the parents. The parents deserve their own little side rant...

The parents view games shops as a domain for children. That they are merely bankrolling the whole operation and without the kids they wouldn't dare set foot in such an tawdry establishment. Which makes me, a solitary male adult, not working there, a pedophile. Straight up. I'm lurking around the modern equivalent of a child's play park.

I mean, they actually mutter to each other, warning other parents of the potential danger, that I might separate one from the pack and ravish them. Hell, I already have an "in"...I know they like video games!..."hey little boy. Wanna come home and see my Pokemans?"

There are a few parents there that don't look at me as filth. In fact, they don't look at me at all. I'm invisible. And as they are standing just behind little Timmy letting him peruse the GTAs and the BMX XXX's of the world, they block the way completely. As if a tiny person darting back and forth isn't enough to stop me getting close to the games, the 6 foot shadow, copying his erratic movements sure works well at impeding me.

Bastards.

And then, insult to injury, when I finally get into to where I want to get at, and I finally get a game in my hands and I'm trying to decide between two games...two games I've read about and look up online and debating the merits and pitfalls with friends....the Shop Staff descend.



"Do you need any help today, sir"

One of the few times I get called sir, without it being followed by "you're making a scene"

I genuinely look like a geek. I really do. I have a beard and glasses. I'm a bit fat. I'm likely wearing a gaming t-shirt. My MP3 is likely pumping out some game soundtrack. I smell. I'm unmistakably in my element in a gaming environment.

Of all the lost looking souls in the place, of all the vacuous vacant expressions in the room, mine is the one you least worry about. I know what I'm in for and, from past experience, from prior attempts at conversation with you, that you, dear Member of Staff, know nothing of gaming.

So, no, it's not that he chose me, as a fellow geek to converse with, that "Do you need any help today" is code for, "lets chat about games".

The final kick in the nuts of these experiences is always that the price of any high street store is always higher than online. Always. But I'm an impatient person. The thought of my game spending 2 days in an envelope prison tumbling through the postal system tears me up. A postman is manhandling my game. I bought that! I bought it and I have to wait 2-5 days before I can do anything with it? Fuck, no wonder piracy is so widerife.

So, for all it's faults, I like the immediacy of actual factual shops. It's just every single other aspect of it that does my tits in.

Rant. Over.