So yesterday after spending an unfortunate number of hours cleaning my bedroom (I even vacuumed the cobwebs off the ceiling! What? Am I kidding? No, why?) I had a flash of inspiration. I dashed to my back room, flung open the closet door, and dove in! After an epic battle with some stuffed animals and old textbooks, I emerged with a battered old Sketchers shoe box. When I opened it, my face was bathed in golden light as I beheld my Holy Grail:



Ah, Sega Genesis, how I've missed you! Cheerfully I carted the shoe box to my bedroom, and examined the older television sitting on my dresser. It was old enough for me to be able to plug the ancient-technology cable trailing from the back of the Genesis directly into the TV. Plug the machine into the nearest available outlet, stick a Sonic cartridge in, turn it on, and....

"Sega!" the TV sang as the blue logo flashed across the screen and the oh-so-familiar Sonic the Hedgehog music chirped thinly from the speakers.

YES!

It still worked! I was so excited!

My mom was always very strict about the television when I was growing up. If I'm remembering correctly I was allowed to watch two shows every week, so maybe hour or two, with an occasional Disney movie thrown in. That's in a week. Not that much. However my dad was in the navy and was gone on submarines for months at a time, and when he was gone, my mom would borrow our family friends' Genesis and I would get to play a bit. I guess it was something of a consolation prize, something to get my mind off the fact that daddy was gone again.

I was probably sevenish? eightish? and I had a blast playing it of course. But my favorite thing to do was watch Mom play, especially Shining in the Darkness. I remember being really excited because Mom was letting me stay up late - REALLY late! - so I could watch her play just a little bit longer.

I got a little older, and still loved the Genesis (which gradually sort of become ours by default - the family friends didn't really want it). My friend Matt and I would obsessively play Altered Beast and Sword of Vermillion. I got older still, then even older, and suddenly the Genesis had been collecting dust on a shelf for many years and I was ready to move out of my parents' home. I asked to take the ancient console with me, and soon it was ensconced in my tiny garage studio apartment. When I moved from there to my duplex, it was shoved into a closet and forgotten. In the three years I've been moved out, I don't think it's been hooked up once.

Until yesterday!

I spent hours crawling through dungeons with Shining in the Darkness, trying to remember how to bring up the cheat options in Altered Beast (press Start and B at the same time), collecting rings with Sonic, being shamefully schooled by the computer in Mortal Kombat 2, and visiting many other old friends.

I think the Genesis can stay hooked up for a while this time.

^_^