A 2600 Goes Home

MAC-42 · January 14, 2014

I had a nice day today, all told. But one of the last things that happened today was a great big cherry on top of it. Gather 'round, children, while ol' MAC-42 tells you a short story (as if!) before (his) bedtime.

Pardon my verbal diarrhea in advance, please.

My wife works with a woman who, upon hearing about the little gaming area I've set up in our house, was apparently a bit awed. (My stash is in my signature for what it's worth. Small, but I like it.) I just assumed she was a would-be gamer who hadn't yet gotten around to picking up the good old stuff yet. With this in mind, I told my wife to offer her the Vader 2600 that was laying around our place not doing too much. I cobbled together a collection of seven decent but readily available games--Yars', Space Invaders, Berzerk, you know the sort of thing--and offered the lot up for $30. I really couldn't justify adding the old thing to the collection on a long-term basis, sadly; there's only so much room when you have three kids, and you have to make it available quickly. Besides, she sounded like someone who would enjoy it and I didn't feel like gouging such a person. (Not on that day, anyway. Heh.) She about flipped out at the offer, double-checking to ensure that it really included the games and everything. We confirmed it, and she dropped by my wife's cubicle, cash in hand on the spot. I got it boxed up and sent it with my wife to work at lunchtime today.

The thing that made my day happened late in the evening. My wife works at a rather large financial institution which has begun its year-end accounting procedures. (I won't see her for more than a couple of hours a day for another month or so on account of the late nights she'll have to work.) She called me on her way out of the office to let me know that she was leaving. When I asked if our buyer was satisfied, she informed me that she was, and that the woman was originally from California. I'm too dumb to make the connection, of course, so my wife had to inform me that she lived around Sunnyvale because her father was an engineer at Atari all those years ago. She was awed, it turns out, by the fact that if you swing my cat by his tail, you'd hit at least one Atari device in my house. My wife didn't know all the questions to ask about her father's employment at the Big A--which division, in what projects, et cetera--but it really didn't matter to me. All I knew was that an Atari 2600 was going home with someone who had a connection to it and would really, really appreciate and enjoy it. And that made me happier than you could possibly imagine.

Epilogue: The woman told my wife, in whispered tones that are implied to carry a gentle amount of shame at the admission, that she would like to get a NES in order to play Zelda and the Mario games. I'm willing to sell her mine…but this time, it'll cost her. (I'm not inclined to replace my NES if I get rid of it, so the cost of parting with it in the first place would be rather high. I want a TurboGrafx-16 and a small pile of its games, too, y'see.)