I've stolen my fair share of hearts, along with hours of music and movies thanks to Torrents and LimeWire, but there's one story that I have about my first big "Theft" that people seem to connect with and love so I thought I'd share it.
Well, when I was a kid everyone in the neighborhood had Super Mario Bros. 3 for the NES. Well, everyone but me. I wanted it so bad but my parents didn't ever have the money (Well, that's what my mom said) so one day I was out at Sears playing the games on the demo thing they had; it was a TV with an NES and a adapter thing that had ten cart's plugged into it and you could change games by hitting this button below the TV or it would randomly change after 15 minutes.
So anyways, I was there playing The Legend of Zelda when the guy running the game department opened the case to get a game. As he was doing this, a customer called him over and he left the case open. Well, I seized the moment. I grabbed one of the SMB3 cart's and a poster because the bin that held them said "Free with purchase" so I said "Why not?" The poster was a Nintendo character collage and it was full-size and had the Sears logo on it I think.
So anyways I ran out of the store with the cart and poster and headed home as fast as I could. Home was at least a fifteen minute drive from the mall where the Sears was so it took me a good hour to get home and, of course, being Seattle, it was pouring rain and freezing cold. I get home to find no one there but there was a note from my family. They went bowling with the neighbors and would be back around dinner time.
So I changed, threw my wet clothes in the dryer, hung up the poster in my room and played my very own copy of Super Mario Bros. 3. The game I had wanted to own so badly since I skipped school to see "The Wizard" on opening day with my friends was finally mine. I played that game all that night and all the next day. I remember the joy I felt when a few weeks later I finally beat it.
Sadly when my family and I moved to California I somehow lost that cart and poster. I never bought a replacement copy because I felt that I had earned that copy. I was worried that if I played another copy I wouldn't get that same feeling; that it wasn't the ones and zeros I loved, it was that cart.
) and see MY bicycle across the street in front of this other kid's house.
