Sometimes writing can be a great way to deal with a painful past. Writers and therapists alike tout the cathartic nature of writing down our thoughts and feelings and often the very best writing comes from a desire to simply put down in words a traumatic experience and lay yourself, bare and exposed to the world to suffer the scrutiny, or revel in the praise, that results from such personal and poignant prose. Or, if you’re like me, you’re a boring gasbag and baring your soul is the only interesting shit you can write about.
Growing up, my mother suffered from a mild case of Munchaussen syndrome by proxy. She was obsessed with her kids being sick, or having physical disabilities that none of us actually had. For years I was told I had asthma and I had to spend my entire high school career sitting in the bleachers in gym class like some vagrant leper. Turns out there was nothing wrong with me, aside from being an out of shape fat ass.
So it was when my mother drove me to the mall at the age of 15 to buy myself a pair of glasses with my first ever paycheck. I had two hundred and fifty dollars cash for painting Disney characters on the windows of my local Burger King for a special promotion. I had never had that kind of money before in my life and I couldn’t wait to go on a shopping spree. When my mom told me, on our way to the mall, that I had to go to Lenscrafters and buy a pair of glasses with it, I was crestfallen. There was no Walmart where we lived that had glasses for twenty bucks. No, I had to go to Lenscrafters and spend nearly my entire paycheck for glasses that I knew in my heart I didn’t really need. There was absolutely nothing wrong with my vision.
I walked the mall dejected. A lonely Munchausen kid with no friends.I stopped in front of Lenscrafters and peered in. It was bright and clean. I had no prescription for lenses and I knew that if I went in I’d have to either fake a vision exam or buy non-prescription lenses. Both of those choices involved speaking with adults about complex issues. I felt sick. Through all my phony illnesses, it was, ironically, my only real condition that my mom refused to acknowledge. My extreme social anxiety brought on from a lifetime of moving from place to place every few months. Going to a brand new school every semester can really fuck a kid up.
I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t face those adults in their white jackets and their questioning gaze. I walked on, even more disheartened. In my 15 years of life I had never really directly disobeyed my parents but, walking away from the Lenscrafters I knew in my heart that I would not return. Social anxiety would win out over honoring my father and mother. Somehow, serendipitously, I found myself in front of the Electronic Boutique store. Was it fate? Kismet? The display in the window was a pyramid of Super Nintendos. $199.99 for the system and it came with Super Mario World. I had read been reading up on the SNES in Nintendo Power Magazine. The 16 bit system had Mode 7 graphics, meaning it was capable of rotating and scaling sprites. It could display over 32,000 colors and claimed CD quality sound. My heart raced at the possibilities. I was powerless against it. I was so excited my hands were shaking when I handed the cashier my money. Clutching my bag and my change, I went outside to wait for my mom to come back and pick me up.
Mom rolled up in her forest green 1980 Oldsmobile Cutlass. The door shrieked, hollow and metallic, when I opened it up and climbed in. I looked dead ahead and fastened my seatbelt. Even so, I could practically hear my mom’s jaw set as she was no doubt looking at the giant bag from Electronics Boutique sitting in my lap.
“Did you get the glasses?” she asked in the slow, steady tone of someone who knows the answer but is so stunned that they need a moment to plan their next move.
“No.” I said simply, continuing to stare straight ahead.
My biggest fear was that she would escort me back in to return the game system and buy the glasses. This is, I thought, the only possible course of action. I hugged the SNES to my chest and waited for what seemed to be an interminable length of time.
Then, something amazing happened. I heard that old steering column lever shift into Drive. I felt my body press back into the seat as my mom stepped on the gas pedal. We drove away from the mall and there I sat, disbelieving but victorious. And although I didn’t realize it at the time, this would become a defining moment for me. This was the beginning of my journey towards independence and self-reliance. It wasn’t something that happened overnight, of course, but the path had been irrevocably set.
But I didn’t think about that sitting there in my mom’s unctuous green car, clutching that game system to my chest. I just couldn’t wait to play Super Mario World.
