Another good GameStop experience!

There are so very few of these in the world that I do like to share them when they occur. I stopped in to see if I could nab a used copy of Tomb Raider Anniversary for cheaper than it was going on Steam. Yes, as it turns out, but my $8 in savings came at a high cost: the box of the store’s sole remaining copy looked like it’d spent an Indonesian summer up a gorilla’s butt.

“Hey man, any way I can switch that box out?”

“Sure, no problem.”

I was expecting a fight, but no, dude stole a nicer-looking box off of a game with a generic cover and a title written in Sharpie. How someone manages to lose their inserts and cover art without scuffing up their box is beyond me, but this person did and his copy of Generic Nicktoon #1219 ended up at GameStop.

I know GameStop employees don’t have human emotions, otherwise I’d suspect this one felt bad for me after having waited in line for nearly twenty minutes. That was actually my bad; I should have known better than to go in a few minutes after the door opened on Halo Reach release day.

Speaking of which, I wish my mom had been a complete tool when I was growing up. Okay, granted, she let me get away with staying home from school sick when I really wasn’t, but only in a wink-wink-nudge-nudge kind of way. She knew better than to be a hardcore disciplinarian, and I knew better than to push the envelope more than I should, and if I got a couple of days off here and there it was no big deal.

But there’s no way I could have gotten away with staying home sick and then making her go buy me a video game. Not only would she have rejected the notion flat out, she probably would have recanted my not-so-sick day just for the sheer cheek of it. But lo, there are such mom-tools out there, and one of them was at GameStop with me this morning, buying sweet little Bobby his super-violent rated-M-for-mature alien murder simulator.

Let’s pretend, just for the sake of argument, that I not only squirreled my way into a sick day but also managed to bribe Mom into buying me a game. Let’s say I bought it with my own birthday money, and that all she had to do was run into the store, which was right next door to somewhere she was going anyway. I could just barely imagine my mom cutting that kind of deal, if I agreed to do something crazy like scrub a toilet or bathe the dog or pick up all the rotten grapefruits in the yard while she was gone. What I wouldn’t be doing is calling her every ten minutes to ask, “Are you there yet? Did you buy it yet? Do you have it yet? Are you on your way home? Did you remember to get the code for the extras?” And no way in hell would that copy of Halo make it into the same room as my Xbox without me passing a thorough mom-class grapefruit inspection.

So, my hat is off to you, sweet little Bobby. You’ve got your poor, hapless mother extremely well-trained. You have the makings of being a bona fide magnificent bastard someday, sir.

4 comments to Another good GameStop experience!

  • Tanto

    What kind of neighborhood were you living in where your yard was waist-deep in rotted grapefruits? I mean, I know that Florida doesn’t play by the same rules that the other 49 have agreed on, but…

    • Brickroad

      We had two huge grapefruit trees but never ate any grapefruits. Result: lots of rotten grapefruits laying all over the backyard. They got rid of the trees once my brother and I moved out, probably because it was easier than picking them up themselves.

  • Was this “Bobby” kind of a little shit in the line, or what? I mean, he had to of been some what of a brat for you to be upset by it. He could have cancer for all you know and his mom is buying him his last game and letting him live the last days of his life outside of the stress induced school hours.

  • FSS

    Oh man, my mom would never buy me something rated M, even for my birthday. She STILL wouldn’t, and I’m 19 years old. I should buy some cigarettes just to spite her, and then throw them away because I can’t stand smoking.

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