The contest form stated in bold lettering that all winners—first, second, and third place—would be notified no later than November 31st. Each morning I’d wake up, report to the calendar in our kitchen, and tick off another day, like a prisoner in solitary confinement in a movie. As the ticked-off days passed by, as the 31st loomed on the horizon, I grew more and more anxious. I’d always been a talented worrier, even when I had nothing to worry about. But whenever I did have something to actually worry about, like the outcome of this contest, I physically transformed into a hunchbacked, handwringing basket case complete with a perpetual sheen of flop-sweat on my brow.

“Are you certain that Mr. Harris actually dropped off the form?” I asked my mother. Mr. Harris was our neighbor who worked in Rome and who had agreed to deliver the contest form for me.

“For pete’s sakes, if he said he dropped it off, then he dropped it off,” she answered. “Stop getting so worked up over this. Look at yourself. You’re all hunched over. If it’s meant to be, then it’s meant to be.”

I cringed. I hated it when my mother used her zen-like “meant to be” line of logic. I didn’t like accepting the fact that so much in the universe was simply out of my hands. As far as I was concerned, I’d delivered an absolute masterwork of coloring, and the universe needed to do the right thing and reward me for doing so.

On the 31st, I woke up in the morning, got dressed, ate breakfast and went to school. I sat in my classes in a catatonic state. When I got home, I burst into the house and asked my mother if the Zayre department store had phoned. “No, nothing so far,” she said.

The sun went down. We went through our usual family routines involving dinner then trying to find something on TV that we could all agree on. I stared at the phone on the wall, trying to will it to ring. Just before eight o’clock, it rang. I pounced on it before it had a chance to ring a second time. “Jones residence, who’s calling please?” I said into the phone. (This formal way of answering the phone was my father’s idea. If we didn’t answer the phone in this exact way, we’d never hear the end of it.)

“Hello, Scott. Is your mother there?” a voice said. It was my mom’s gossip-y friend, Janice.

I told my mom it was for her, then went back into the living room. I tried to get into the TV program we were watching—a re-run of “The Love Boat”—but was too crestfallen to follow the plot. I went to bed, feeling numb and defeated.

The next morning was Saturday. I woke up to the sound of my father quietly talking into the phone, something which almost never happened. Aside from calling his own mother on Sunday nights, he prided himself on being very much anti-phone. In fact, when anyone else was using the phone, he’d almost always threaten to “rip the damn thing out of the wall.”

“Hold on, I’ll get him,” he said. Then he called my name. “There’s a phone call for you,” he said.

In a half-awake daze, I went downstairs and picked up the phone. “This is Mr. Kaufman at the Zayre department store in Rome,” a voice said. “I’m sorry for not calling sooner, but we had some trouble reading your phone number on your entry form. Anyway, we all very much enjoyed your entry in our coloring contest. I’m calling to tell you that you have won first prize. Congratulations.”

Let’s move on to stage 8-5. I call today’s stage “Hammers and Porcupines,” which I believe is also the title of a Tom Waits album that was only released in Japan in the ’80’s. The key to today’s stage is being able to toss a hammer-time hammer up into the air, then scamper up a ladder and reclaim the hammer on the next level up while it’s still spinning. It is, without a doubt, the coolest move in Donkey Kong. Seriously, pull off this move and you’ll feel like Fonzi. But botch the move and you’re Richie Cunningham. And yes, I’m referring to TV characters who have been off of television since 1984. So sue me.

The stage opens with Mario at the very bottom of a four-tiered structure next to the exit door. The giant key is perched at the very top of the stage. In between: clusters of breakable bricks, hammer-time hammer power-ups, four porcupine enemies, and one portable ladder power-up. Let’s begin.

Climb the closest ladder and grab a hammer. Go on, grab it—don’t be shy. Head left and lay waste to all of the breakable brick in the area, as well as the two porcupines who are roaming about. Also, there’s a 1-Up heart over here. Grab that thing. The heart makes this one of those zero-sum stages; die all you want in today’s stage, because as long as you grab the 1-Up at the start, you won’t lose any Marios. This is always extremely comforting to me.

After the breakable brick and porcupines have been destroyed, ditch the hammer (if it hasn’t already expired on its own) and grab the nearby vine. Use it to reach the next tier. Then take a ladder to the subsequent tier. All the way to the left you’ll find the portable ladder power-up. Trigger it, then carefully place it directly underneath the ladder you climbed only seconds earlier. Once it’s in place, get ready to hustle.

Welcome to The Trickiest Part of Today’s Stage. Hustle back down the ladder, then down the portable ladder, Quickly grab a hammer-time hammer, toss it upwards, and as it’s spinning, climb up the portable ladder. If you’re quick enough, you’ll automatically re-grab the hammer. Do this a second time, and a third time, until you’re at the very top of the stage.

Up here you’ll find two more porcupines and a couple of breakable bricks. Destroy any porcupines that get in your way, but your core objective is those bricks. Use the hammer to break them. The hammer-time hammer should be  just about out of time now. Head down through the hole you’ve just opened up, trigger the portable ladder power-up again, place it in the same exact spot again, head down and grab the hammer-time hammer again. Then head back up, hammer in hand, to the place where the portable ladder power-up is located. Destroy every last breakable brick in this area. A word of caution: when you opened the hole in the upper tier, the gravity-defying porcupines no doubt got loose. Be on the lookout for them. If you have a hammer when one approaches, use it. If you don’t, get ready to flee, or jump, or both.

With all of the breakable bricks destroyed, it’s time for your moment of glory. Head back to the top tier, grab the key, then do some skillful falling down through the now brick-free areas. Hello, Exit Door. Congratulations, tough guy—only 20 more stages to go.