"Bucky, go get the controllers!"

As a kid my mother was the most loving person I knew. Still is actually. But I vividly remember there were 2 things that my mother absolutely LOATHED, without exception. She basically considered them the devil in animated and objective form. The first was any sort of Nintendo, and the second was The Simpsons. Ironically she loved soap operas, which I can't see scoring much higher than The Simpsons on the "classy" scale, but whatever.

The solution to the lack of Simpson's viewing in my home came in one of two forms. The first was to go downstairs and start watching it on the tv in the basement, closely paying attention for that distinct noise of "moms footsteps" coming down the stairs. Then quickly changing the channel to something else when you heard the equally distinct sound of the basement door opening.

The second solution was to cross your fingers and hope dad got home and started flipping through the channels before The Simpsons was over. This because he would usually start watching it if he saw that it was on. Of course even if dad turned it on it never took my mom more than a few seconds to start giving him a hard time about it. But then my dad would fire back with some witty wise crack like, "you know your mother doesn't like this show because I tell her she acts like Marge." It didn't matter how many times I heard him say that I laughed EVERY TIME! I did this NOT because I found it equally hilarious each time, but because I thought that laughing at his joke about The Simpsons would increase the chances that he'd keep it on that channel!

The earliest solution I can remember to the Nintendo shortage was to rent one. Weren't those the days??? Video Powerstore, not even a mile from the home I grew up in, would rent out Super Nintendos and Sega Genisis consoles. The only problem was my mom would only let us rent them like EVERY OTHER year on our birthdays. A far more convienant option was to have my cousin Bryan spend the night and bring his Super Nintendo with him.

Well one night when I was younger me, Bryan, and my little brother Russ were up late playing super nintendo and apparently we were being a little too loud. So my grandma who was visiting from Utah came down into the basement and gave us a couple of warnings. All of which we obeyed for only a matter of minutes before returning to our loud and obnoxious childhood antics! Well we collectively underestimated the seriousness of my Grandma's threat and next thing we knew she confiscated the controllers and took them upstairs with her!

Boy were we fired up! Well, I suppose I should say, "Boy was IIIIII fired up!" I guess I can't speak for Bryan or Russ, but I can assume they were just as upset! So as the three of us laid there talking smack about my grandma Russ and Bryan kept saying, "Dude, Bucky, go get the controllers!" I was hesitant at first but slowly began to develop a master plan to get the controllers back! After a couple of minutes and some fine tuning in my mind I ran my idea by Bryan and Russ who were suddenly reluctant to give their approval. I was confused... 5 minutes ago they were practically begging me to go get the controllers. This of course got me even more fired up, so I stood up and said something like, "Fine dude I'll get the controllers myself! Grandma's old, she's probably sleeping anyways, this is gonna be a piece of cake!"

So I stood up from the cushions that composed my bed for the night and began to creep towards the door that led to the upstairs. I was cautiously placing my feet between Bryan and Russ, when out of left field I heard MY GRANDMA'S VOICE only a few feet behind me... "I wouldn't do that if I were you!" I don't remember if I cursed or not while I simultaneously screamed and jumped a couple feet in the air, but either way it was scary! I mean where did she even come from??? How had she made it all the way down the stairs and positioned herself perfectly behind me without me noticing??? And why was she just sitting there ont he couch all creepy listening to me talk smack about her old age, and never say anything??? Needless to say we remained "controller-less" for the remainder of the night.

The moral of this story??? Never underestimate your Grandma!