Earlier this week, I went to Best Buy and stood in line for over an hour in hopes of purchasing the Nintendo NES Classic Edition. You may not know that this was the hard to find gift last Christmas season. It was also the thing my son wanted most in the world. He started talking about it months before it was released. “It has 30 games!” he said. “Mario! Pac-Man!”
“Great!” I thought. “That will make Christmas shopping for him easy. And if not Christmas, then surely his birthday, which is soon after.”
The day the game consoles were released, they sold out on Amazon within seconds. Elsewhere on the internet, they were nowhere to be found, except at prices well above the $69 regular retail price. Who would pay that?
“Don’t worry, honey,” I told my shattered son, after it was clear that there was no way we were going to find one in time for Christmas. “There will be plenty available after the holiday excitement dies down.
On a side note: I also told my son repeatedly last summer when Trump was sweeping the Republican primaries that there was no need to worry because he would never be elected. Never. I mean, a wall with Mexico? Global warming a hoax? It was ludicrous.
This just goes to show how often I am wrong about things that I am absolutely convinced of. Trump was elected (though I still can’t believe that happened). And earlier this week, Nintendo announced that they were discontinuing production of the NES Classic Edition. As in, no more. EBay prices soared. The last units were set to ship to stores by the end of the month. Of course, we still hadn’t found one; remember, I was waiting for the excitement to die down. Late Sunday evening, though, I saw a news story which reported that Best Buy would have a limited number of units for sale in store Monday morning.
Which explains why I was driving down the highway, speeding to Best Buy, even though I didn’t know for sure if that news story was even true. Alternative facts and all. And if it was true, I still didn’t have a lot of hope. I’m not usually lucky when it comes to things like this. I actually had forgotten about the sale, and had taken the dog for a walk after dropping my daughter off at school. In case you are wondering, it is probably not the best idea to go on a leisurely walk the morning of perhaps the final in-store release of the world’s hottest gaming console.
The store opened at 10 a.m. It was 8:20 a.m when I remembered that I had been thinking about going to Best Buy at all. It was about a 25 minute drive. Was it even worth going? Honestly, this did not sound like fun. It was probably going to be a waste of time. But for some reason, I decided to see.
When I pulled into the parking lot, there were just a handful of people in line. A good sign? Some had lawn chairs and were wrapped up in sleeping bags. One man had a portable heater powered by a propane tank. I counted eight people there. That would make me nine! And if they had 10 game consoles? Surely they would have at least 10?
Or not. It was possible that they would only have eight units, or five. There were no guarantees.
An hour is a long time to sit in front of a store with just a vague hope of shopping success. I talked with the woman next to me and the fellow by her. We scooted over to make room for him on the curb. He had big dogs in his truck. We laughed together because one of them looked like he was driving. The lady had jet skis and collected old VHS Disney movies; apparently, someone has the VHS version of the Little Mermaid in an original case on eBay listed at $250,000. She just found out that she was going to be an aunt.
In the end, though, the friendly Best Buy employees said hello to our line and handed out…
Can you guess?
Ten tickets. There were ten NES Classic Minis in the store. I was just in time.
I felt bad for the people in line just after me. There was a fellow who even offered $80 to anyone who wanted to sell their ticket. “My son would be too sad,” I told him, though his offer was tempting. The crowd dispersed without incident after that, disappointed but not crushed.
I found a funny kind of community there. One man who already had one of the consoles (which he got after sleeping in a tent in front of Target on the coldest night of the winter, he told me) told me which accessories I should buy. We needed a second controller, of course, so that two people could play the games together. Also, one extension cord, because otherwise you have to stand right by the TV to play and who wants to do that? After we got our tickets, I chatted with the fellows at the front of the line. They had gotten there around 5 am. One thanked the other for buying him a coffee, and they shook hands as the store doors finally opened and we all streamed inside.
God was there in front of that Best Buy store. A strange collection of souls gathered in hopeful anticipation, people who normally never would have talked with each other. I bet there were even Trump supporters there. No matter. For the time that we waited, we chatted and listened and were kind to each other. Those of us who got the prize were joyous and grateful, because the treasure was one that we weren’t sure we would ever find. Especially me, because I got there so late. When I started my trek to Best Buy that morning, I wasn’t hopeful at all. But once again, I was wrong. This time, that was a good thing.
Not such a bad way to spend the morning after all.
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