The morning of the shopping spree, I woke up early and put on the shopping spree outfit that my brother had picked out for me: sweatpants, gym shoes, and a zip-up hoodie with two large pockets in the front. Dressing for comfort and speed, he explained, was the only way to go. “Plus, you can fill up those pockets with action figures,” he said, which, I had to agree, was an excellent point. When I went downstairs for breakfast, my mother took one look at me and said, “Where do you think we’re going today? Berry picking? We’re going into Rome. There is going to be a photographer there. Go back upstairs and change. Wear the purple sweater you wore on picture day. And for the love of god, at least try to comb your hair.”

I did as she directed, even putting on my formal dress shoes, something which my brother shook his head at. “You’re going to slip all over the store floor with those things on,” he whispered. “You think I don’t know that?” I hissed back. “What am I supposed to do?” Before leaving, I sat on the toilet for about an hour, enduring the customary bout of explosive diarrhea that accompanied every stressful or exciting event in my life.

When we arrived at the Zayre department store, the parking lot was completely empty, except for a pair of cars positioned near the store’s front entrance. The store’s windows were still dark. My dad parked, and we got out of the car. The four of us peered through the glass at the racks of clothing that stretched back into shadow. Finally, a bald man appeared, walking towards us out of the clothing racks. “You must be the Joneses,” he said, pushing open one of the doors. “I’m Mr. Kaufman.”

The overhead lights flicked on with audible clicks as we walked in. The stagnant air inside the store reeked of stale popcorn and cheap perfume, two smells that not only seemed exotic at 8:30 in the morning, but they also made my already touchy stomach flop over a few times. Without shoppers, without music, and without price-checks being called for over the public address system, the store seemed larger and more foreign than it normally did. “Something isn’t right here,” my brother whispered to me.

We followed Mr. Kaufman through the Women’s Department, eventually arriving at the center of the store. This area had been designated as the starting point for my shopping spree. As if on cue, two dull-eyed stock boys emerged from the back wheeling a pair of shopping carts. They gave the lot of us resentful looks, no doubt unhappy about having to be at work a full hour earlier than usual on a Saturday morning for this bit of nonsense.

“This is the starting line,” Mr. Kaufman said, pointing out a length of electric tape which had been stretched across the aisle. “You’ll have one full minute to roam the store and fill these shopping carts with whatever you like. However, you’ll only get to keep the things that are on this side of the line”—he pointed to the right side of the line—”when the minute expires. Anything on this side of the line”—he pointed at the left side of the line—”won’t count and will be returned to store shelves. Is everybody clear?”

I nodded my head. I noticed that the lights hadn’t been switched on in the Electronics Department. I pointed out this oversight to Mr. Kaufman. Then he said something which knocked the wind clear out of my chest: “We left the lights off there on purpose, because Electronics is off limits this morning,” he said.

“It’s what?” I asked, clutching my chest.

“It’s off limits,” he said. When I craned my head, I could see that an imposing steel gate had been drawn across the front of the Electronics department. Behind the gate, back there in the dark, was the Machine Code Monitor cartridge that was the sole reason I’d entered this dumb coloring contest in the first place. Then Mr. Kaufman added, “We can’t have you walking out of here with four General Electric televisions, now can we? By the way,” he said to me, “that’s a great sweater. Is that from our Boys Department?”

“It is,” my mother said proudly. I wanted to take the sweater off and rip it to pieces with my bare hands.

“I thought so,” Mr. Kaufman said. “Is everyone ready? Scott, are you ready?”

That’s when my brother leaned in close and whispered, “I know what’s wrong. They’ve changed everything around. Since we were here last weekend, they’ve completely changed the layout of the store.” He was right. A cursory glance at the Toy Department revealed that the Star Wars figures weren’t where they normally belonged. All of our planning, all of our map-drawing had been pointless. I was about to spree into the unknown.

I felt my sphincter seize up. Like one of the rogue summer-time thunder storms that seemed to buzz our house like a crop-duster, lightning pinging off the power lines, my diarrhea was suddenly coming back.

Mr. Kaufman peered at his wristwatch. “On your mark. Get set. Go,” he said. I grabbed one of the shopping carts and tried to run, but my dress shoes comically skated in place on the store’s tile floor, as if I was running on ice.

And now, stage 8-9. Today’s stage is spread across two horizontally scrolling screens of gameplay. The centerpiece: a pair of waterfalls, both of which are not only nearly impossible to swim through—you can do it, but you’ll really need to hammer on the swim button—but they are also populated by a bunch of those hideous fish. Underneath the pair of waterfalls is a not-so-secret passage that Normal Mario can’t fit through. Tiny Mario, however, can get through the secret passage without a problem.

Turning into Tiny Mario requires you to be struck by one of those eerie, floating mushrooms. Fortunately, Donkey Kong Jr. is making the scene today. From his perch on the right side of the stage, he’ll hurl these things on a regular basis. Stand near the mouth of the secret passage, and when one of those eerie mushrooms is floating in your direction, make sure that it hits you somewhere on your fat, Italian body.

Once you are Tiny Mario, there’s no time to dilly dally. The effects of the eerie mushroom won’t last forever. And you’ll need to be on the far side of the secret passage before it wears off and you turn back into Normal Mario. Turning back into Normal Mario before you reach the left side of the cave is, I promise you, not something you want to have happen. If this does happen, you’ll need to emerge from the secret passage, and take your chances in the waterfalls. And your chances of survival in the waterfall are around .00002-percent. So now you have all the facts.

When you’ve reached the left side of the stage, jump into the partial waterfall at the edge of the screen and swim up to the portable ladder power-up that’s suspended in the water. Trigger it, then use it to connect the middle tier to the top tier. The top tier, of course, comes with its own set of problems. Example: there’s a seed-spitting plant up here. Yes, the seeds float at a pace of approximately one mile per hour, which makes them easy enough to avoid. But they are still annoying, and can still kill you, so they need to be respected.

Grab the key, work your way back to the right—yes, you are traveling in a big, clockwise circle through the stage—and when you reach the switch, set the key down, avoid the slow-motion seeds, and pull it. The switch reverses the elevator on the right side of the stage, changing it from up to down. Re-claim the key, board the elevator, keep an eye on DKJ who is still wearing his filthy wife beater-style T-shirt (at least it looks filthy on the LCD screen) and still hurling eerie mushrooms, and ride it all the way to the exit door. Hard to believe, but we’ve only got 16 more days to after today, folks.