Nashville Knucklehead

Gamers

When I was a kid, we had to walk in the snow, uphill, to gather twigs and acorns which we used to fashion crude, yet delightfully entertaining, pinball machines. Then Pong came out. I had a friend who was so spoiled that his parents bought him Pong. His dad was a radiologist. They could afford it. We played Pong for hours.

In High School, I got a job bussing tables at a place that had Asteroids. That was a major breakthrough in gaming. I would walk to work, uphill in the snow, hours early and stay hours after I got off work before walking home, uphill in the snow, just to pump quarter after quarter into the asteroids machine.

But I've never had a home game system. So I was a bit puzzled this morning, when I was walking into Sam's and there were some guys sitting outside the door, not selling anything. Then I saw that one of them had a sign made from cardboard. "Sam's is now letting panhandlers sit outside their door?" I thought to myself. But wait. The sign, obviously written by the first guy by the door, said, "PS2 line starts here."

Inside, I was chatting with the manager about it. Sam's gets exactly two of the new Playstaions tomorrow. There were already three people in line. He said he talked to number three. The guy is going to hold out to see if number one or number two gives it up.

Did I mention it is cold and rainy?

Did I mention that these were grown men?

So, I wonder if the guys in line have standard Sam's memberships. Because I have a business memebership, which means I get to enjoy their low prices and crappy service and free coffee three hours before the teeming masses. Maybe I can buy both Playstations tomorrow at 9:59.

posted by Nashville Knucklehead @ 9:59 AM