Growing up?

May 15^th was our 3^rd wedding anniversary.

Because we had a little extra money, we decided to buy ourselves a present to celebrate. I said I wanted a bread maker. Sunny wanted a new crockpot with removable stoneware. So we hopped in the car and went to Walmart. By sheer chance, the prices in store where a low lower than the listed prices on the website, so we could afford both.

However, it was only when I we where back in the parking lot, loading our new kitched appliances into the trunk of the car that I had one of those real ‘What the fuck and I doing?’ moments.

Seriously. We had some free money and instead of buying a video game, or a nice shiny gadget with lots of lights and buttons…I’d bought a kitchen appliance. What was worse was I was actually a little excited about it.

I mean, seriously! When did I grow up?

Twice last week I found myself walking around the garden section at Lowes, out of choice! I found myself looking at fountains, planters and rose bushes, thinking grown up thoughts like “Hmm, that would really brighten up our front porch.”

It seems like only yesterday that my parents would be dragging me around the garden center, while I asked how much longer they were going to be about every 15 seconds.

This started me thinking about just how much I’ve changed, and even though I’m sure the change was gradual, I only noticed it recently, so it feels like I went from kid to ‘grown-up’ over night.

Ok, to all my fellow geeks. Remember what it was like when you’d borrow a NES or Sega game from a friend at school, and it felt like the school day lasted forever because you just couldn’t wait to get home and play ‘Mike Tyson’s Punch Out’ or ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’?

Remember when you’d wake up at about 5am on a Sunday morning and fire up the console with a brother or sister to play ‘Double Dragon’? (Oh, and when you’d be fighting the last boss your mother would walk in, shout at you for being up so early and making so much noise and turn the damn thing off).

“Oh, and off topic, but for nostalgia’s sake for the true geeks, remember being called away from your Commodore 64 for dinner, just after you’d spent three hours typing out the BASIC code for a game from a magazine…only to return after dinner to discover it had been turned off before you could save it to a tape?”

When did that enthusiasm and excitement stop? Is it because we just don’t like gaming as much as when we were kids? Are we growing up? Or is it just because as adults we can set our own schedule and not have to rush home to get an hour of gaming in before we’re forced to go to bed or go somewhere?

Has the fact that I can play a video game whenever I want somehow removed a little of the shine from it?

To be honest, I don’t really know.

All I know is that within minutes of getting home the bread maker was on, and I was watching the dough getting kneaded on a nice Italian herb and cheese loaf. I haven’t done that with anything since stepping though my front door after school and racing upstairs to try out the copy of Excitebike I’d borrowed from someone that morning.

That breadmaker had become that NES cartridge that would be burning a hole in my school bag all day.

Am I growing up? I have no idea.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go play Sonic.