My decades of videogame playing have taught me many things through the years, including this old chestnut: If something is causing the ground to shake beneath your feet, you need to make sure that you are airborne–ideally at the very apex of your jump–during said shake to avoid taking damage. This bit of gaming wisdom came in handy, as you’ll soon see, when tackling today’s level of Donkey Kong.

This level–level 1-4, if you’re playing along at home–is my once-every-four-levels showdown with Donkey Kong. Gameplay stretches across two screens, scrolling left and right. Kong and Pauline, as usual, are on the upper-most tier while Mario is located at the very bottom. There are a series of girders and ladders for Mario to navigate, with the first available ladder being all the way to the far left of the scrolling screen. There are no 1-ups, no hammer-time hammers, no bonus-points sombreros to gather or rivets to remove. What makes this otherwise austere level interesting is that Kong, every five to six seconds, will stomp his oversized feet, causing an avalanche of menacing objects to fall from the top of the screen.

Falling objects include barbells (the kind that circus strongmen use in movies), hubcaps (at least I think they’re hubcaps), and what appear to be airplane tires. If any of these objects so much as graze Mario, it’s game-over. These objects fall at varying rates of speed, making them fairly easy to avoid. But once, when a barbell struck Mario, it literally flattened him into a paper-thin wisp. Thanks again, Tex Avery.

The level becomes more challenging whenever Mario is jarred by the tremors caused by Kong’s stomps, leaving him stunned and vulnerable for a few seconds during the object avalanches. Whenever this happens, I seem to regain control of Mario only a split second before the barbells, hubcaps and airplane tires reach him, resulting in a steady stream of phew-caliber close calls during my ascent.

This is the moment when the bit of wisdom that I mentioned at the top of the post–about being airborne whenever the ground shakes–comes in handy. I try it out on the game. When Kong’s feet are about land, I make sure I’m starting my jump (A button). Sure enough, if I time this correctly, Mario emerges unscathed and un-stunned. I continue my object dodging-ascent towards Pauline.

As soon as I reach Pauline, to no one’s surprise, Kong grabs her and disappears. I finish the level with a whopping 120 seconds to spare. Number of times I died before reaching the top: two (mostly because I wasn’t being as patient as I could have been). This four-part section of Big City levels ends with the following results:

1-1: 65 seconds

1-2: 83 seconds

1-3: 76 seconds

1-4: 120 seconds

The grand total at the end of this section: 344 seconds. The section closes with an animated short showing Kong destroying a bridge and stranding Mario on the far side. Undeterred, Mario leaps into the air and tags a strange-looking object above his head, which somehow magically rebuilds the bridge. With the bridge now restored, Mario gives chase after Donkey Kong and Pauline. No doubt I’ll be getting the chance to test out this new bridge-conjuring object in subsequent levels.

Before playing this morning’s level I hustled over to Starbucks in the nearby Tinseltown mall for coffee and the Sunday Times. A homeless man who frequents this particular Starbucks asked me if I had a Toonie to spare. I’d seen him around before. He has a loud voice and can seem aggressive, but I’ve realized after seeing him in action on several occasions that he’s pretty harmless. I searched my pant pockets, then apologized to him for not having a Toonie. I felt like helping him out today, and genuinely felt bad for not being able to do so. “THAT’S OK,” he said.

At the stirring/sugaring/creaming station, I inadvertently dropped one of those wooden stirrers. When I bent over to pick it up, I could feel him looking at me. “I LIKE HOW YOU WEAR YOUR JEANS,” he said. “YOU WEAR THEM LIKE I WEAR THEM. THAT’S THE RIGHT WAY TO WEAR YOUR JEANS.”

I laughed a little, then thanked him, then tried to hurry through the stirring/sugaring/creaming process.

“DO YOU GIVE COMPLIMENTS?” he asked.

I told him that I sometimes do, yes. (Stir, stir, stir, sugar, sugar, sugar, etc.)

“DO YOU ACCEPT COMPLIMENTS?” he asked.

I told him that I sometimes accept compliments, yes. (Sugarsugarsugar, etc.) With my paper under my arm and coffee in hand, I hurried towards the exit. I wished the man a happy Sunday.

“AND A HAPPY SUNDAY TO YOU TOO,” he said.

As I walked back to apartment in the rain, while wondering if there is really a right way and a wrong way to wear jeans, I thought, One surreal, otherworldly interaction on a Sunday morning is always one too many.