Here’s a fun story I wrote for the Oakland Tribune back in 1989 — during the very early days of Mario, Link and Zelda.
At 7:20 a.m. last Sunday, I was making plans to leave home.
Like any normal person with a job, two kids and a front yard full of weeds, I had been sleeping in on a Sunday morning – until I heard Jon and Peter playing the new Nintendo.
I burst in on them. “Hey. It’s 7:20 in the morning. YOU WOKE ME UP.”
No answer. Scenes from the Legend of Zelda flickered across the transfixed faces of my husband and my son.
They didn’t care. So enraptured were they – man and boy – with their dratted boomerangs and Oktoroks that they actually did not care that they had wrecked my beautiful Sunday morning sleep-in.
I stomped back to bed, covered my head with my pillow and cried. I like my pillow. It cares.
I’d leave home, that’s what. I’d pack a few clothes and leave. In my new life as a single woman, my job and some clothes would be all I’d need.
I’d check into a hotel. It would have to be something cheap, probably something with noisy air conditioning and windows that didn’t open.
Later on, I’d phone Christina, our 5-year-old. Did she want to come live with Mommy in the place where the windows didn’t open? Or did she want to stay with Daddy, Peter and the Nintendo?
With any luck she’d choose the Nintendo. I’d be a free woman.
But first, I’ll just cry myself back to sleep a bit. No point in starting a new life with that grumpy, no-sleep feeling.
I Lose My Cool
Half an hour later, the hotel room had lost its appeal. It would probably smell of Lysol. I ate breakfast and got ready for church. Peter ate his breakfast and went back to the Nintendo.
Soon it was time to wet down the cowlicks and put on the shirt and tie.
But Peter wanted to kill himself first.
“No way,” I said, hanging tough.
“Please, Mommy,” he begged, his eyes fixed on the screen. “Can’t I just get killed? If I don’t get killed I’ll lose all my stuff.”
“Then pause it.”
“I can’t pause it. Daddy wants to switch to his guy while we’re in church.”
“Peter, you pause that thing or I’ll pull the plug on you.”
He didn’t.
I did.
On the morning of April 23, 1989, I pulled the plug on my 8-year-old son.
He burst into tears and went to find his necktie.
“It’s a flaw in the system,” said Jon. “You can’t just turn it off or you will lose everything. You have to wait till your guy gets killed.”
Monday morning I decided to get counseling.
I dialed a number in Redmond, Wash., where 75 Nintendo Team Power Game Counselors answer 35,000 calls a week from Nintendo players and their significant others.
At 12:15 p.m., all circuits were busy. At 12:20, 12:40, 2:08 and 2:14 all circuits were busy.
It was time to go home. I would pull no plugs tonight, I told myself. Pulling plugs is bad for young egos and 12-year-old marriages. Pulling plugs wreaks havoc on expensive electronic equipment.
Fifteen minutes past the kids’ bedtime, I found Jon, Peter and Christina sitting, arms entwined, before the Nintendo. All eyes were on the monitor. “Bedtime,” I said, keeping my hands to myself.
But Video Games Are Good for You
The Nintendo is not just fun, asserts a 31-page white paper from Nintendo of America, Inc. It’s educational. It enhances creativity, reasoning, self-esteem, spatial skills.
The Nintendo requires children – and adults – to keep track of competing stimuli. Players must acquire tools, set goals and respond to enemy attacks – simultaneously.
The white paper did not say anything about simultaneously responding to the word “bedtime.”
I Get Counseling
On Tuesday, and none too soon, I got through to my game counselor at Nintendo. His name was Jeff. Yes, Jeff could save my marriage and keep my family intact.
Just pause it, he said. Then push up A and B on controller No. 2, put the arrow on save, push start, hold the reset button down and turn the power off.
That will save everything. When my loved ones come back to their game, their guys will still have all their rubies.
What a relief. Jon and Peter will be able to switch off the Nintendo at the drop of a power bracelet. They will be on time for church. They will be on time for dinner, for school, for bed. They will listen to me.
If not, maybe Nintendo has a Team Power Family Crisis Hotline.
© The Oakland Tribune, April 30, 1989
Update: Years later, remorseful, I finally apologized to Peter for unplugging his Nintendo. Was he traumatized? “I don’t remember you pulling the plug on us exactly,” was his response. “But I do remember when Dad would get excited in a super tense moment, he’d yank on the controller and accidentally unplug the system.”
Christina, now in her thirties, tells me that, had I invited her to run away from home with me, she “totally would have chosen to stay with Peter, Dad, and the Nintendo.”
The latest Nintendo console, the Switch, has been a big seller during the pandemic. But that phone number in Redmond, Wash.? It gets you an out-of-service message these days. So, you’re on your own, Nintendo Switch moms. There’s no help for you.
For more stories about young Peter, go to “Will My Kids Grow Up to Be Cheaters?” Also, “Small Boys: Reading, Writing — and Yucky.”
Great article! Brings back a lot of good memories and makes me excited to play FF XIII-2, ;).
Thanks, Peter! How many of the Final Fantasy games have you played over the years? Have they gotten easier?
How ironic that you-know-who is named you-know-what. Maybe #2 will be Metroid.
Or Oktorok. Probably not Princess Peach.