Saturdays were the worst part of the week for me. I had to be the only kid who actually liked going to school. There was stuff to do there. Half of it I didn't want to actually be bothered with, but still you get what I'm saying. Around 10AM every Saturday my grandmother would leave to go to choir rehearsal. My mother would go to... I honestly have no idea where she went. She was like Batman in the sense that she just disappeared mid-sentence. I'd wake up just as she was leaving and see her throw down a smoke pellet before hopping out the second floor window.
Once cartoons went off, my Saturdays freaking sucked. I was an only child back then, and because I was home alone the only rule was that I couldn't open the door for any reason. That meant no going outside. The first hour or so was fine, but after a while I had to get creative. Seeing that X-Men game reminded me of what I call "The Phone Book Period."
You know how kids used to call and make prank calls back in the day? That was me minus the prank call part. I used to just call places for the hell of it. The MLK Library used to have a number that you could call that would play recordings of a new children's story each week. The number was in the blue "information" section of the phone book. One day I noticed that there was a number for the historical weather data. Why not? What else was I gonna do to pass the time? I listened to that. Then I called the Boys Town Hotline, not really knowing what that was for. When they realized I wasn't at risk for anything they told me to hang up.
That led to me just calling all kinds of numbers:
- Metro for bus times just to see if they could accurately predict when the next bus would go around the park up the street.
- I called the city to report a dead cat.
- I was famous for calling to request "more information" on...everything. Lincoln Tech, D-I-Y home repairs, The Army
After a while I ran out of places to call in that section and started going through the actual Yellow Pages. I'd tell people I was doing a report on something for school and needed information. I talked to lawyers, electricians, plumbers...anybody who would talk to me.
Now that I think about it, I used to do the same thing when I was even younger. I'd dial 7 numbers at random and talk to whomever answered. "Hi. I'm Ordale. What's your name?" "Does your mother know you're on the phone?" That stopped when some man said he was going to track me down and kill me. I was either five or six, so...welcome to DC in the 80s.
Anyway, this all goes back to the X-Men game, because I remember calling every listing under "Arcade Games" to see if there was somewhere I could buy the game. I was tired of losing quarters and assumed that it must be cheaper to just buy the whole thing.
"Hi, my name is Ordale and I'm trying to buy the X-Men game." If they didn't hang up after hearing my prepubescent voice, they sure as hell hung up once I told them that I had a whopping $77 of birthday money to spend on one.
"Now, my grandmother said she's gonna give me $25 for my birthday, so I can go as high as $100 if you can hold it til July."
(Like most things, there's no reason for this story...just popped in my head just now as I was going to bed. And just that quick...End of Story)
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