January 27, 2012 scottcjones 1Comment

After his terrific upset win in Utica, and, more importantly, after saving me from having to save the team, I decided to become friends with Mike Francisco. I sat with him on the team bus. We became wrestling buddies during practices. Once, as we ate lunch together in the school cafeteria, he looked over both shoulders making sure there weren’t any teachers around, then he pulled a Polaroid from his wallet. “Check this out,” he said. The Polaroid was of an indeterminate brown object that was shadowy and horribly out of focus. Before I had a chance to ask what I was looking at, Mike said, “That’s my girlfriend’s beaver.”

Diagram 42.9-A

Mike’s girlfriend was Kim Thomas, a girl who I’d had a crush on since grade school. When they’d started dating a few months earlier, I went through several weeks of quiet hand-wringing–something that was sort of a specialty of mine back then–before letting go of my jealousy and making my peace with their union.

Now, here I was, sitting in the lunchroom, looking at a fuzzy photograph of Kim’s beaver.

I slowly turned the photo in my hands, feeling fascinated and sick to my stomach at the same time, hoping that something in the brown-ish, beige-ish shadows would suddenly look more beaver-like to me. “Can you believe that? She let me take that picture last night,” he said. He said the word “picture” like this: pit-sure.

During practice after school that day, I really laced into Mike. We typically pantomimed our way through the drills–everyone did–but that night I took him down hard, over and over again. I ground his face into the mat. I executed a half-nelson on him, twisting his neck until he winced. “What’s with you?” he asked. “Ease up, will you?”

I didn’t ease up. I was angry. I was angry that Mike had Kim Thomas as his girlfriend and I did not. And I was angry that he had a photograph of Kim Thomas’s beaver in his possession because, 1. it never would have occurred to me in a million years to take a photograph of her beaver (How would one even ask to do such a thing? I wondered. “Excuse me, Kim, but I happen to have this camera with me, and I was wondering if I might get a few candid snapshots of your vagina?”), and 2. my only Kim Thomas fantasy involved putting on my best sweater, driving over to Kim Thomas’s house, making smalltalk with her mom (moms always loved to make smalltalk with me for some reason), then driving Kim to the movies, then kissing her in the car a little bit afterward, then driving home alone with my erection.

“Let go, man!” Mike said as I worked an under hook to high crotch move on him. I was angry at Mike that night. But, I realized, I was also angry with myself for not being a much bigger pervert.

Level 3-3. OK, it’s time for me to go into the fray once more, into the last good fight I’ll ever know. Yes, that is in honor of The Grey, which opens in multiplexes today. You should go see it. It’s pretty good.

Today’s level starts off with another decent head-scratcher. I’m standing in a corridor with a Knight’s Helmet. There is a bit of ladder up above my head, which I can’t reach (I tried, trust me). Why this bit of ladder is there is truly beyond me. It serves no purpose whatsoever. After a few more minutes of being stuck and feeling angry at the ladder bit, just when I’m about to give up and look at an FAQ, it occurs to me to try crouching near the narrow bit in the corridor. Sure enough, the Knight’s Helmet comes charging at Mario’s backside, driving me all the way through the too-small-for-me corridor in my crouched form, until the corridor abruptly ends and I drop to the ground below.

Back on my feet, I climb aboard the never ending string of rising elevators. I ride up to the middle tier of the level. The key is waiting for me here. But I’ve got a pair of bipedal turtles to deal with first. They occupy the corridor that stands between me and the end of the level. After fooling around with them for a few minutes, I realize that, like all enemies in the game, they are only mildly dangerous. I can even ride around on their heads if I like. The only way I can be outright killed by them, I learn, is if I make contact with their bipedal bodies. Donkey Kong truism: Heads are usually safe; bodies are usually dangerous.

There is a hammer-time hammer nearby. I grab it and utterly go to town on their asses. Within seconds, I have rendered the corridor 100-percent turtle-free. Naturally, the hammer still has time left on it–this thing lasts forever–so I perform a move that has become my favorite move in the game: a hammer throw-away. Pressing the A button during hammer time launches the hammer up into the air, where it continues to dramatically rotate end over end above my head for a few seconds before fading away. Pro Tip: If you leap and grab the hammer while it’s still in mid-flight, you’ll resume your hammer-time enjoyment right where you left off.

I retrace my steps down the corridor and grab the key. I have to toss the key up to the platform above me, then perform a handstand jump to reach it. On level’s uppermost tier, I encounter not one but four locked doors. I remember which door the HELP! speech balloon came from at the start of the level, and carry the key over to it. Click, click, it goes into the lock, and level 3-3 is finished. Next up: another once-every-four-levels showdown with D.K.

 

One thought on “Man Vs. Donkey Kong: Day 27

  1. Well Scott, you had your whole adult life to squash your high school innocence…something I am sure you accomplished in spades ; )

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