Pac-Man Memories
Story was published with permission of the author, John Rinck (rinck@actel.com).
My worst game memory has nothing to do with winning or losing a game, and has nothing to do with the actual game itself!!
I was about thirteen years old, naive, and had low self-esteem. Boo-hoo you say? Yes. Well, I was in a bowling alley arcade, sitting down playing Pac-Man. Through the corner of my eye I can see two girls, about 15 I guess, looking at me and whispering. I get nervous: "Are they laughing at me? Do they like me?" Remember, I'm 13, and don't know anything, so I don't even so much as look up at them. I pretend to ignore them. A couple of minutes later one of them comes up and sits across from me and starts watching me play.
My heart is pounding. What does she want? Just then: GAME OVER. I can't ignore them now, so I look up and see this very pretty girl staring at me smiling. I'm a dork, so all I can say is a weak "Hi." She asks all the questions. What's my name, where do I live and all that. She then becomes very blunt and tells me "I want to jump your bones!"
And then my insecurity plows in, and I think "Nice joke, babe. I'm not that stupid, why would she want to jump my bones?" This actually helped in the sense that at least she couldn't embarrass me since I knew her game. Well, if she was joking, then she sure hid it well. She wrote down her phone number on a piece of paper and handed it to me. Then she asked for my number. Here I could have gotten away without any fear of public humiliation by giving her a fake number. But, I'm a guy, and so of course I gave her my real number. I was pretty sure she wouldn't call me, and would have quite a laugh telling her girlfriends about the geek she drove crazy at the bowling alley. Let's just be reminded once more: I was 13 years old and the biggest doofus in the world. I was totally clueless.
Anyway, I get home that night and was for some reason very nervous about the fact that she'll call and my family would answer and then tease me ad infinitum afterwards cause I got played for a fool. Well, she did call, and I immediately scurried outside to hide. I could hear my sister talking to her. My sister was answering questions about me left and right, being very generous, too, I might add!
Well, they hung up, and my sister came out and told me what went on. Apparently this girl was sincerely interested in jumping my bones, but when my sister told her I was only 13 she became uninterested very quickly. She thought I was 18!!!!
So, if I was cool, calm, and collected at that bowling alley, I could have had some real fun that night, and maybe for many nights after that. But, I was a dork, and continued to be for the next two years before I broke out of it.
What the Hell does this have to do with video games you ask? Well, I still can't go into an arcade to this day without remembering that fateful night back in the winter of '84. I become 13 all over again, and must cringe in fear whenever I walk past the table-top Pac-Man game. Damn Pac-Man!!!
-- John Rinck rinck@actel.com Web: http://www.wp.com/RINCK/ (for the Silicon Valley Apartment Guide)
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