[Welcome, friend. Come on in and warm yourself by the fire. Oh, and get yourself up to speed by going back to Day 1 where I explain why I’m playing 101 levels of Donkey Kong in 101 days.]

My least favorite part of wrestling, by far, was the tournaments. They were typically all day affairs, always held on Saturdays, at some faraway school no one had ever heard of before. We’d leave by bus in the pre-dawn dark, then spend several hours traveling across treacherous, snow covered roads, all in the name of going someplace I didn’t want to go, and doing something that I didn’t want to do.

Me, I liked staying home on Saturdays during the winter. I liked watching a monster movie in the afternoon (on Saturday, there was always a monster movie on). I liked eating tacos. My mother often made tacos on Saturday night.

When we’d finally arrived at the school, we would immediately inspect the tournament brackets. I’d see my name written up there on the white board in the “heavyweight” bracket–JONES–already paired off with another name. The sight of my name always made my stomach turn. Because with my name already on the board, there was no way out of this. And, at tournaments, there was never a chance of collecting a forfeit. At tournaments, I had no choice but to wrestle.

Sometimes I’d draw a fat guy in the first round and score an easy win. But mostly what would happen is this: I’d hyperventilate my way to another embarrassing loss, then spend the rest of the day mooning around the gymnasium, waiting for the rest of my team to lose so that we could go home.

If any of my teammates made it to the finals, we’d be at the school well into the evening hours. On those days, I’d pass the time by wandering around the school, inspecting the school’s trophy cases, or studying the student artwork pinned to bulletin boards. I’d peer into the locked, shadow-filled classrooms. I’d look at the vacant rows of desks and the blackboard, and I’d wonder, quite seriously, what it was like to be a student there.

Sometimes the schools had security gates in place which prevented me from exploring further. But once, at a school in Carthage, New York, after losing my first round match so quickly that my opponent did not even break a sweat, after showering and dressing, I lucked my way through a series of unlocked doors and suddenly realized that I was somehow standing alone inside the school’s cavernous auditorium.

I could feel the rows of empty seats sprawling before me in the dark. I could feel the huge space opening up around me. The auditorium was as silent as a church, except for the January wind, which was whistling through the auditorium’s eaves outside the school.

Milestone alert, everyone: I’m twenty five levels into Donkey Kong. It’s hard to believe I’m already one quarter of the way through this very heroic and completely meaningless task. Today’s level proves to be something of a head-scratcher, as you will soon see. It’s the first of the new SHIP levels. The coconuts and wood motif from FOREST? That’s gone now. It’s been replaced with boat-y things like masts and planks, etc.

Level 3-1 features a key, a door, two tiers of “fun” (ha, ha!) to navigate, and a new enemy type: a frowning bipedal stone. There are three frowning stones in total patrolling this level: two in the sharpangle moat up on the second tier (note: sharpangles, which are deadly to Mario, do not phase these enemies in the least), and one which appears to be stuck on a ledge on the bottom tier.

Now, before going further, I need to know one thing: can I safely ride on top of the frowning stones? I gingerly step onto the cranium region of the frowning stone which is stuck on the ledge on the bottom tier, and I discover that, yes, these frowning stones are just as sweet and harmless as frowning ponies.

The giant key is on the bottom tier, across a small opening and a second moat of sharpangles. I’ve noticed that there’s a bridge power-up on the second tier, across sharpangle moat number one. I make my way to the bridge power-up, using the pair of patrolling frowners to cross the sharpangle moat. What I do is this: I trigger the bridge power-up, then place it on the bottom tier, creating a long path to the key. With the bridge theme song playing, I run like hell, retracing my path, riding the patrolling frowners back across the moat, climbing down the ladder, etc.

But as soon as my feet touch the bridge, the bridge tune winds down to its final notes, and the bridge itself–poof–vanishes beneath my feet.

Because I’m a notoriously slow learner, I repeat this process two more times, telling myself that I simply wasn’t being quick enough. Turns out the solution is a bit more obscure than this.

What I finally do is this: I place the bridge in the gap between the stuck frowner and the sharpangle moat on the bottom tier. The frowner, now freed from his tiny ledge prison, crosses the makeshift bridge to the moat, where he begins his patrol. Now that he’s in the moat, I can now use his flat head to cross the moat, avoiding the sharpangle pit of doom/despair.

On the far side, I grab the key, then ride the frowner a second time, back across the moat. I leap across the gap that I’d filled with the makeshift bridge. Once I’m safely on the other side, the key and I head for the door. Key goes into the door, door opens, Mario goes into the door, and voila, the most obscure level I’ve encountered so far is behind me. Next up: Level 3-2.