Get Equipped With: Puberty!
Disclaimer: the following lame anecdote contains incessant ramblings, Life with Louie style reminiscence, a dog’s toenail and even a phallic joke or three. In the midst of all this there’s also an account of video games used to cure a bad habit. Let the good times roll.
To me, video games have always been like that love interest you know isn’t good for you, but that you can’t get your mind off of. I love video games, and they hate me, at least when I reflect on my expanding gut, gaming past and my laundry list of childhood complexes related to video games.
Casual swearing? Listening to family members drop F-bombs in the kitchen while I played Super Mario Brothers in the adjacent room.
Desensitized to violence? Watching Hitler’s- I mean, Master D’s head explode in Bionic Commando.
Tooth decay? Yoshi’s Cookie.
Streaking? Adventure Island.
Eating too much at once? River City Ransom.
Fighting dirty? Double Dragon. With how often I had kicked Abobo in the junk and subsequently applied that knowledge to real life brotherly brawls, it’s a wonder I didn’t kill my younger brother in our childhood scuffles. Today, I just hope I one day have nephews, or I might feel guilty for the rest of my life.
All that said, I can boast that video games returned the favor once in my life, helping to wean me off an issue that would’ve crippled future-me’s social prospects.
Chewing. Not gum-chewing or tobacco chewing, fingernail chewing. When I wasn’t threatening my NES with bodily harm for letting me die (Yeah, I was a fun kid), mini-me had a tendency to chew his fingernails. Like most of my childhood habits, I have no idea how this one got started. Maybe I thought that mangled fingernails would improve my Nintendo performance, since I’d recently acquired a copy of MASOCHISM, also known as Battletoads. Maybe it was some hidden regret since as a baby, my dad had once found me chewing a dog toenail, and I had apparently been in flavor country when he caught me and fished it out of my mouth. Either way, it had to stop.
Mom and Pop were a pretty forgiving bunch, so having my fingers dipped in cayenne pepper was never an option. Instead they appealed to my baser instincts, telling me that they’d buy me any Nintendo game I wanted if I could only quit chewing for a month. Back at that age, Darth Vader himself could have lured me into a car by offering me a free Nintendo game, so I immediately began monitoring my chewing habits.
I’d like to say that this bribe inspired some kind of epic cure; something like putting scotch tape over my fingernails, beating Battletoads while wearing mittens, or even a child-muzzle. Instead, all I can remember are the results. I ran speedily through the toy store, picked out a copy of Mega Man 3, and scurried home to do battle with Needle Man, Snake Man, Hard Man, and friends. I never chewed my fingernails again.
Although, when I look at the names of those Mega Man 3 robot masters, maybe I really just traded in one demon for another. Those robot master names didn’t seem so stupidly funny when I started, but they did when I finished. Maybe I ditched my fingernail chewing habit to gain admittance to the wild ride that was puberty. Thanks for three years of awkward, voice-cracking, zit-filled, middle school hell, Mega Man.
