Now I, like the majority of red-blooded American human spawn from the year of our Lord, nineteen hundred and eightieth decade, have read my fair share of Nintendo Power magazines.  I used to beat Ducktales on the reg when I was like six years young.  Ain’t no thang .  I also, being the naive imbecile that I was/am, thought I knew a thing or two about MarioKart for the Super Famicom Entertainment System.  I lived in this blissful ignorance for over a decade.  I was like a stupid fucking piece of shit ant that is all cocky because it is so sure it knows that two foot area between that tree and that rock in the park.  Well guess what, ant, the world is a lot bigger than that miniscule swath of land that you’ll ne’er even fathom existing outside of.  Much like the aforementioned lame-ass ant, I was about to get stepped on by life.  I went to college to party and learn stuff, but boy-oh-boy did I not know how forcefully expanded my mind would get on one fateful eve in the bayou.

I had just befriended the Adams and Oak crew and was heading over to play some of the Kart Of Mario.   I whistled the tune to the underground level 2-1 in the original Mario as I skipped over the uneven sidewalk squares that led to that fenced-in wonderland on the corner of Adams Street and Oak Street.  It was one of those cherished New Orleans afternoons where the humidity was merciful and the sky was clear.  You might say I was in a good mood.  Heck, even a grand mood.  I was on my way to see my buds to play some Super MarioKart fer crissakes!  After saying high to Dunk in his car (pun intended), I sauntered into Tmatt, Christserveher Columbus, and Daniford Frickiford’s “apartment”.  I plopped onto the couch, releasing dust motes from the civil war era, and cracked the knuckles on my gaming fingers as one of my bros tossed me a forty.  Chris smiled his trademark shit-eating grin, and Dan continued to be totally hairless as they sat next to me on the couch, assuming their battlestations.  TMatt was outside looking really cool as he smoked a cigarette of tobacco.  He peeped his soft-haired head in and saw that it was time to do his sworn duty.  

The game starts up and we jam out to the sweet 8-bit tunes and crack some jokes I don’t remember while we choose our characters and the level upon which I would be forever changed.  The game started off like many matches in my life had started.  Boop... Boop... BEEP! We were off. Everyone taking their well practiced turns with great aplomb, stockpiling fantastical weapons as we left the cheating computer players in our proverbial dust.  Soon the race evolved into a match solely betwixt mortal humans, or so I thought.  As the race went on at its feverish pace, something outside of the game kept gnawing at my attention.  It wasn’t until midway through the second lap that I realized what had been disquieting me so.  During this race that was taking the full previously untapped potential of my mind just to keep up, TMatt was lounging against the armrest of the couch, playing using only one hand.  His non-gaming hand was deftly tilting his Mickey’s Brand ® malt liquor bottle so that it’s golden contents flowed gently and steadily into his open maw.  This man was merely having a leisurely drive in the same race that threatened to cause my brain’s neurons to cook my brain right in my skullpiece for just trying to keep some semblance of competition.  

His casual demeanor changed abruptly when Dan, through what must have been some serendipitous intervention from the Nintendieties, rounded the final turn with an eye on the first place prize.  TMatt placed his forty ounced beverage on the stained carpet and placed his hand on the controller.  Once he assumed the grip of a proper player, his eyes started glowing red and the closer Dan got to the finish line, the darker I noticed the room was getting.   It was the final stretch.  Dan getting ever closer, and TMatt had just hit a question block.  Every second stretched into a minute, and every minute into a millenium.  Madness was the only escape for someone not prepared for such intensity.  Tmatt’s inventory kept randomizing and I wondered why he didn’t just cut it short to get his weapon sooner.  The room just got darker and darker as his weapon choice randomized, and a murder of crows scattered into the sky outside.  Dan, sopping with sweat, was mashing the controller’s buttons like a man drowning.  His character got ever closer to the finish line and right when he passed the point where his triumph was all but guaranteed, Tmatt’s inventory stopped on the lightning bolt and Tmatt pressed the fire button.  The entire room filled with a flash that only the unfortunate people subsequently vaporized by the explosion of a hydrogen bomb ever experience.  The flash was followed by an unnatural silence and a darkness permeated the room, the sky outside, and even our souls.  Chris shit his pants.

After exactly 666 seconds, the perfect silence was broken by the sound of Paco outside yelling that the mu’ffuckin’ power went out in the middle of, “The People’s Court” right before the verdict.  All of us, after a minimal amount of our wits were gathered, huddled at the window as we watched Paco climb the electrical pole outside A&O and jam his bowie knife into the transformer.  The lights flickered on, almost as if they were unsure if it was safe for them to start working again.  “Holy Fucking Shit”, we could hear Chunk curmudgeoning from his apartment.  We all sort of nervously giggled and played a quick game of grabass while we were trying to settle our nerves when all of a sudden Chris says, “Hey you guys. The Super Nintendo power light is on. Turn on the TV, Dan, to make sure it’s not broke.”  Dan hesitated for a moment with the remote control before turning on the boob tube and what that screen subsequently showed will forever be burned into the hypothalamic cortex of my feeble feeble mind.  

The three of us simultaneously turn slack-jawed to look at TMatt who was going outside to finish smoking that cigarette that I told you he was smoking earlier in the story if you were fucking paying attention.  TMatt looked back at us at the threshold of the apartment with the air of Mick Jagger after eating a twix bar and said, “I put hot sauce on my hot sauce.”

The End