by Richard Fore
“Now the 32X was inserted into the game cartridge slot of the Genesis. So once I got it, I’d have the 32X hooked into the Genesis from above, and the Sega-CD attached from below. It was already going to be a tower of power made up of three consoles, but I was thinking of taking it even further. I’d heard about the Game Genie and how it lets you create your own codes and unique effects for your games. Naturally, I had to have one. So I asked for one for Christmas along with a 32X. I got them both. They were my big presents for the year. When I got them I became convinced I was about to tap into the ultimate power and be able to alter gameplay mechanics however I saw fit. Perhaps I’d even be able to travel into my videogames like how the contestants on Nick Arcade or Captain N were able to.
“So the Game Genie worked by inserting a game cartridge into it and inserting the Game Genie itself into the Genesis. Of course, I’d be inserting it into my new 32X which sat atop my Genesis. But I didn’t stop there. Why limit myself? With the Sonic & Knuckles game and its lock-on technology, you could insert Sonic 2 and 3 into the Sonic and Knuckles cartridge to unlock even more features. So ultimately I had Sonic the Hedgehog 3 at the very top of my gaming tower, which was inserted into Sonic and Knuckles below it. That was inserted into the Game Genie, which fit into the 32X, which was atop my Genesis, which was atop my Sega-CD. That Christmas morning my brother Caleb and I rigged all this up, and the tower of power was so tall we actually had to stack all of it next to our TV because it wouldn’t fit in our entertainment center.
“I was convinced I was about to become a gaming god. I sat in my chair holding a controller, ready to become the lord and master of not just Sonic the Hedgehog, but of all life forms, of the cosmos itself. I whispered welcome to the next level to myself because I thought I was about to become like Will Decker when he merges with V’Ger at the end of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, a fully evolved super-being. I ordered Caleb to power on the console. He hesitated. He actually feared what we were about to unleash. ‘Do it!’ I yelled, and he turned on the Genesis. There were sparks. We had made the mistake of having three Sega consoles as well as a NES, SNES, a TV, a VCR, an Atari, a lamp, and a clock radio all jacked into a single electrical outlet. The overload caused an electrical fire. Our power adapters melted while we called for our dad to put out the fire. He got it under control pretty quickly, all we lost were the power cables and our TV was fried beyond repair.
“At the time though, I didn’t attribute the meltdown to having too many things plugged into the outlet. I thought it was actually God himself raining fire down on us for our arrogance in daring to create such a blasphemous tower and attempting to achieve gaming godhood. On that day with my very own eyes I saw the folly of the makers of the Tower of Babel. I didn’t think it was a coincidence that what started the fire was something called Genesis.
“And on that day I vowed to never again make the same mistake as those tower builders and of Icarus, who suffered the same fate as they did. I didn’t want to burn. It wouldn’t be until several years later that I learned just how worthless the 32X really was because I never again tried to use mine and none of my friends were stupid enough to have bought one. Since then I’ve tried not to be like Icarus in making my life decisions. And I can tell you that in asking Sabrina out, you’re not going to be acting as Icarus did. You’re not attempting to build a Tower of Babel. That’s why I’m here supporting you now.”
“That’s quite a tale, Chris. I didn’t realize you were so religious.”
“Well, next time some blowhard tells you videogames are a bad influence, you can tell them that story.”
Chris looks at the newspaper on my lap, with the photos and profiles of the twelve bachelorettes and studies me intently. “If you get the winning bid for this Samantha girl, you’re actually going to take her out on a date, right? To get some practice interaction so you can muster up enough confidence to ask out Sabrina? Even if the date with Samantha doesn’t go that well? You’ll still ask out Sabrina?”
“I’m not expecting it to go particularly well with Samantha. In fact, after the date is over I’m not even planning on asking for a second even if it ends somewhat neutral or even positive. I just need to go through the motions. Decide where we’re going, pick her up, exchange pleasantries, you know first date kind of stuff. Because it’s not the asking out of Sabrina that is the challenge so much as it is her accepting and my making date number one worthwhile for her. I need the practice. That’s why it doesn’t matter if Samantha is into me or not. I just need some experience, to get a date under my belt, and once I do, I’ll be able to ask out Sabrina.”
“If it will help you, then do it. Just don’t back down after you win her.”
I open up my wallet and display five twenties. “I’m serious about this. A hundred bucks I’m willing to spend if I have to. Now it’d be nice if I could get Samantha since she’s an English major. Having some common ground would give us something to talk about. But if I can’t get her then I’ll go for anyone else I can afford.”
Chris snatches the paper. “Samantha Anderson, a Sigma Pi Kappa pledge. English major like you said, wants to go into teaching. Dark hair and glasses so she’s got a bit of a Baroness thing going. She enjoys horseback riding and studied ballet for eight years. Well, that’s a bummer. She’s definitely not the girl for me.”
“Why is that?”
“Ballet man, it pretty much destroys your feet. Now I’m not so shallow as to totally write off a girl for not having the cutest feet ever, but ballet just ruins them. Like I wouldn’t even want to rub a ballet dancer’s feet, let alone be kissing them. And that’s a real tragedy too, because ballet really makes your feet hurt so you’d want them to be rubbed a lot. But I wouldn’t want to rub them because the very thing that made them sore and in need of massaging in the first place has turned me off of them. And Samantha here tortured her little treasures for eight years and if she studied when she was younger when her feet were still taking shape and coming into adulthood then they’re likely in permanently poor shape because they never got to form naturally.
“So sorry, but I couldn’t handle it. It’d be like a boob man… it’d be like you involving yourself with a woman who lost both breasts to cancer. Ballet’s a cancer to feet. Now maybe, maybe if she’s been out of ballet long enough, maybe then they’ve started to heal. But it’d take a lot of pedicures and massages to rehabilitate them completely.”
“So a waitress then, I guess her feet will always be tired and in need of rubbing, but not battle damaged to the extent of a ballet dancer’s. So would you be happy with a waitress? Or a professional runner, perhaps?”
“Yeah, a waitress would be perfect. I don’t know about a runner, though. I’d have to look at them first. Running is different from walking. Oh, and a roller-skating waitress, that’d be really hot. I’d love a roller-skating waitress.”
“Out of curiosity, do you think Sabrina has attractive feet?”
“I don’t know man, I haven’t seen them. I’ve looked, mind you. But she always wears shoes every time I see her. Never wears sandals. One time I was playing Magic with Dave in the back and she’s there reading on the couch, lying on her stomach with her legs up in the air crossed. I call that the omega position. I love it. There’s no sexier pose a woman can strike than that. But she had on socks. Socks and it was killing me because she’s right there in the omega position yet she’s keeping her socks on. I just kept hoping for her to feel even the slightest precept of perspiration, to have a single droplet of sweat drip down her forehead so she’d realize how much more comfortable she’d be if she slipped off those socks. But she never did.
“Now if Sabrina had been barefoot though, I’d have definitely been too distracted to win the game. And it’s possible I couldn’t have helped myself and would’ve blurted out to Dave that I wanted to suck on his daughter’s toes and I just might have said that had she been barefoot and had nice enough feet. I mean, I know you’re not a father, but if you’re playing Mag
ic and your opponent blurts out of the blue that he wants to suck on your daughter’s toes, well I don’t care if you’ve just tapped a Shivan Dragon, such a declaration is going to throw you off your guard.
“Now as you know, I take my Magic very seriously. I play to win, and I play to the end. Game’s going on too long and I ain’t just gonna wanna quit or let my opponent quit. I’m losing I don’t pout and start playing like a wuss to lose and get it over with. I’m always giving it my best shot.
“So if Dave gets freaked out and decides to take a swing at me, a real swing in real life, he punches me and I go down because of what I’ve said, and such violent behavior wouldn’t be totally unjustified in this case, well you know what I’m gonna do? If I’m still conscious I’m just gonna get right back up and keep playing, that’s what I’m gonna do, because that’s the way I play. And if Dave is like the game is over so get out you sick freak and never come back, well I’m sorry but I’m afraid that’s just going to have to count as a win for me, because I was willing to keep on playing.
“In the end though I actually wound up losing the game anyway, because as distracting as her bare feet would have been, her socked feet were even more distracting because I was so close to seeing them and had wanted to for so long, like I was Tantalus finally about to get a sip of wine at long last but then no, for it’s moved out of reach yet again. You know now that I think about it, maybe they both knew about me and were engaging in psychological warfare. If so, mission accomplished.
“So to answer your question I don’t know. But given the way Sabrina carries herself, the way she smiles, I’d say she has very pretty little feet. But don’t worry buddy, all this happened back when you were avoiding Molly by avoiding the store so you hadn’t even met Sabrina yet. So don’t be worrying that your best friend secretly wants to be shrimping your girl once you get with her, because I’m not some backstabber, okay?”
“Shrimping?” I ask, as an emcee appears on the stage.
“Slang for toe sucking,” says Chris. “Personally I find the term demeaning, it makes it sound as if the act lacks nobility. But in this particular instance where the context is the hypothetical yearning of a best friend to suck on the toes of his best friend’s girl, well, I found it appropriate. But you’re not Jessie, Sabrina isn’t Jessie’s girl, and I’m not a backstabber, outside of D&D at least, so I got your back man, I ain’t stabbing it, cuz I got your back. Don’t forget that.”
“I appreciate that, Chris.”
The emcee is wearing a more formal than necessary red dress and is attractive enough that surely many of the guys here for the auction will be disappointed she’s not up for bidding. “All right bachelors, are you ready to start bidding?” the emcee shouts into her microphone.
I was expecting a fast-talking auctioneer type, but she speaks at a regular pace, and there is no hint of disdain in her voice at being surrounded by so many dateless wonders. The rest of the guys in the audience applaud and cheer, although I only applaud.
“Great!” says the emcee. “We’ll be getting started in just a moment, but before we begin, I’d like to thank all of you for coming tonight on behalf of all the sisters of Sigma Pi Kappa and remind you all that you’ll be supporting a very worthy cause with your dollars tonight. Last year as many as two-hundred thousand women in the United States were diagnosed with breast cancer, and it took the lives of nearly forty-thousand. October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and tonight’s event is the culmination of our month long awareness campaign and we are very close to reaching our financial goal of two-thousand dollars, so bid high and bid often!”
“That’s a good cause,” says Chris. “Definitely something you can feel good about supporting. Personally, I’d want to be supporting an organization dedicated to exposing the evils of foot-binding, but I think they stopped doing that awhile ago. Still, it’s important that it never comes back. All those Dark Lords from Sauron on up, well maybe they wouldn’t have come so close to returning if we’d been a little more proactive in preventing their resurrection in the first place.”
“Yeah,” I say. I enjoy the fact that there’s yet to be a topic Chris has been unable to link to his foot fetish in some way.
“Now, I’m Lauren Jacobi and I’ll be your master of ceremonies tonight,” says the emcee. “Unfortunately, I already have a boyfriend even though he’s a real jerk sometimes, so I won’t be on the market. However, bachelorette number one Samantha Anderson is certainly single, so come on out here Samantha!”
“Good, looks like they’re going alphabetical,” I say.
“They should, because without order there’s chaos,” says Chris.
“I’m just glad I’ll be able to see quickly whether I can get her or not.”
Samantha appears onstage wearing a blue dress. Her hair is dark and matches her photograph. She appears somewhat reluctant to be participating in the auction, alternating between looking at the crowd and the floor. This endears her to me. I want to win her.
“So Samantha, why don’t you tell the guys a little bit about yourself,” says Lauren.
“Well, I’m an English major who plans to go into teaching-”
“No, no, sweety,” says Lauren. “Don’t just tell the boys what they already know. Give them something they can use. How about you tell them your idea of the perfect date?”
“I like going someplace quiet where we can talk and get to know each other first,” says Samantha. “Then follow that up with something fun, like tennis, racquetball, or bowling, something sporty like that. I like a guy who doesn’t care if I can beat him.”
Something sporty, she says. Clearly there’s no future with Samantha, although bowling would be fun enough for just one date. While Samantha says she likes a guy who doesn’t mind losing to her, there’s a difference between an occasional loss and being totally obliterated every time.
“And what do you look for in a guy?” asks Lauren, jerking the microphone very close to Samantha’s mouth, almost hitting her.
“I like a guy who can make me laugh, but isn’t overly obnoxious. I’m an English dork, so he’d have to be able to put up with me name dropping dead authors sometimes. I like a guy who wants to share his life with me and takes an interest in mine. And I’d prefer a creative guy, so someone who writes, paints, or plays an instrument would be nice. Or a guy that can sing.”
“Okay,” says Lauren, “although you might want to be cautious about getting involved with musicians, believe me. Now Samantha, why don’t you go ahead and do a little three-sixty for the guys. We picked out this dress for you because it shows off your butt and we need to get as high a bid for you as we can. So come on now, do a little spin.”
Samantha lightheartedly glares at Lauren which gets some laughs from the audience. But she obeys and twirls for our benefit. Lauren’s appraisal of the dress was accurate.
“That’s a good girl,” says Lauren. “So finally, why would you say you’re still single? After all, as we’ve all just seen you’re quite the little dish.”
“I guess I just need to find a spoon worthy of running away with,” says Samantha. Her joke sounded spontaneous, adding to her appeal.
“You heard her guys,” says Lauren, “so how about you prove your worth with some bidding? Shall we make the opening bid say, twenty dollars?”
I ready my auction paddle when Lauren declares that the first bid has already been made. For the first time I realize my paddle has a number on it. I’m bidder number 42.
“Twenty-five now,” says Lauren. “Do I have thirty?”
I raise my paddle.
“Thirty. How about forty? Do I see forty? I do! Now how about fifty? Fifty dollars for a date with the lovely Samantha Anderson! Samantha, you’re an English major, so what’s your favorite book?”
“I’m a big fan of the Harry Potter series,” says Samantha. “And my favorite one is the Prisoner of Azkaban.”
Half a dozen paddles go up at the mentioning of the boy wizard.
&
nbsp; “Okay, looks like that’s gonna keep things going,” says Lauren. “How bout sixty? Sixty! How bout seventy?”
“She’s lying,” says Chris. “She doesn’t read Potter. She just said that to drive up the bids.”
“It worked,” I say.
“That’s why she said it. But she’s no Potter fan.”
“How do you know?”
“Because she’s a big fan of Watchmen, and Watchmen fans can’t be Potter fans. At least anyone who actually understands Watchmen can’t be. They’re mutually exclusive.”
I raise my paddle. The bidding is now at eighty-five dollars. “Watchmen the comic? How do you know she’s a fan of that? And why can’t you like Watchmen and Harry Potter?”
“I’ve seen Samantha on campus and on her book bag she has one of those smiley face buttons with blood dripping down it. Seriously. And you can’t like both because one’s brilliant and the other is terrible. She’s just saying Harry Potter instead of Watchmen because Potter can raise enough money to save some boobs while Watchmen can’t because it isn’t well known enough in the mainstream crowd that worships things like Potter.”
I raise my paddle again. The bidding is up to ninety-five and I’m approaching my limit. “I have to win Samantha now, I gotta know if you’re right about her being a fan of Watchmen to the extent that she wears the button. Spot me some cash in case the bidding goes over a hundred?”
“Sure. I brought another hundred just in case.”
“Thanks. So why didn’t you mention Watchmen before?”