It's 1980...or somewhere there about. Five year old little me is sitting happily in a pizza shop booth waiting for delicious, cheesy goodness to come out of the oven and onto his plate. The rest of my family--seemingly less concerned with dinner--is huddled around some big machine next to the chip rack. My mom holds my younger sister up to watch as my dad fiddles with the controls. She is excitedly offering advice as she shifts the squirming two year old from arm to arm.
"Wait...wait...wait...jump!"
My dad's feet stay firmly planted on the ground, yet for some reason they all cheer wildly.
Unimpressed, my eyes wander back to the pizza counter, almost willing my dinner to be ready. Five year old little me loves pizza possibly more than anything else in the world. He and 32 year old me are a lot alike in that respect.
As I take a sip of my soda--this was the point in my life where adults began insisting I stop drinking half a gallon of milk a day and start drinking soda...those who know me well can appreciate the irony--my family lets out a collective groan.
"Let's give Jase a guy," my mom says, "I bet he can do it." My mom called me "Jase" well into my twenties, which I guess was slightly endearing if increasingly annoying. By contrast, my boss at my last job called me "Jase" around the office, often in staff meetings in front of other grown men. That was significantly less endearing...and downright creepy, to be honest.
As they all turn to me expectantly, I slowly slide out of the booth. I'm not quite sure what they are talking about--and in fact, I am quite sure that if my dad couldn't do "it" then neither could I--but I just shrug my shoulders and head over to join them. Anything to help speed up the hellish purgatory that is the time between ordering pizza and actually eating it.
My dad drags over a plastic chair from one of the empty tables and lifts me up to stand on it. As I come to eye level with the machine's screen I lock eyes with a cartoon monkey tossing barrels down a cartoon construction site.
"Uh, what do I do?" I foolishly turn away from the screen as I ask the question.
"Move your guy, get him up the ladder!" my dad says, pointing emphatically at the screen.
Amid a chorus of excited instruction from both my parents, I take hold of the little black control stick and send the chubby little man running to the right, towards the first ladder. In that moment, as my actions begin to control something that is happening on a TV screen, I feel a joyful buzz rush over my body which momentarily replaces all thoughts of warm, delicious pizza.
"Get ready...get ready...jump now!" my mom calls out.
"How do I jump?"
Even before I can get the question out, a now familiar chorus of disappointed groans fills the air behind me. As I watch, my poor little man is demolished by one of the rolling barrels just steps away from the ladder.
"The red button," my dad tells me. "You'll know next time."
"Twenty-six?" A voice calls from behind us.
I turn to the counter to see our pizza--the up until thirty seconds ago number one obsession of my life--steaming on the counter.
"Come on, let's eat," my dad says, helping me down off the chair. "We'll try that again sometime."
Strangely intrigued in a way I don't quite understand, I move back to my seat, my thoughts slowly--if less enthusiastically--moving back to pizza.
"Can we try that again after we eat?" I ask as my mom puts a way-too-hot-for-the-likes-of-impatient-me slice onto my plate.
"Well, we don't really have time today," my dad says, "but we can go to an arcade sometime if you want."
"What's an arcade?" I ask, carefully testing the different areas of my slice with my finger.
"A place with a bunch of games like that one," my mom says.
My head swirls trying to grasp this new bit of information.
"You mean there are more games like that?"
My mom simply nods as she begins cutting up a slice of pizza for my sister. She has no idea what has just happened; how this quiet night out for dinner has completely changed the world for me. How the next decade of my childhood will be counted by high scores, extra lives, and levels beaten.
"Eat up, Sport," my dad says, pulling me out of my happy daydream.
My dad called me "Sport" for most of my childhood. Unlike my old boss, however, he had the good sense to start calling me "Jason" after my twelfth birthday.
"You know," I tell them with my mouth full of now sufficiently cooled off pizza, "I think I like video games."
Oh, five year old little me, you have no idea...
Comments