11am Madness

The only system I ever bought on launch day was the GameCube.

What kind of line did I have to wait in? What terrible elements did I have to brave outside? How hungry did I get while waiting? Did I witness any line-fighting? Was I shot at with a BB gun?

It was a horribly perfect day. Easter Sunday. Just after morning service. My girlfriend and I drove over to TRU and I WALKED all the way to the door. I think she had to drop me off at the front door. I thought about bringing some sort of chair with wheels, but I didn't want to look foolish. There were parking spaces in front, but it was too risky. The pavement was wide and black. It seemed to take forever to get to the door. 10 or 20 seconds at least. When I got to the door it opened BY ITSELF! I couldn't believe my good luck.

When I walked in there were at least 10 people already ahead of me. It must have been a really weird line queue for them because they had them scattered all over the store. They must have been trying to get them to buy other things. What a greedy company. When I finally found the electronics counter, it took awhile for them to notice me. A couple other people had amazingly made it as far as I had. I could see the excitement in their eyes along with the crust they had yet to remove. It's not like they had all morning to wash up. It was 11am.

When I handed over my pre-order ticket, I'm pretty sure I remember having to buy a couple of games along with the system. It was Super Monkey Ball and Star Wars RS. I also got another controller and a memory card. I don't know how they suckered me into all that crap. God, I wonder what the GameRankings were on those games.

I was so relieved to walk out of the store 10 minutes later. By now it must have been almost a quarter after 11am. Some people say 15 minutes is a lifetime. I can tell you, though, that on this day, it was exactly as long as I thought it would be. I barely had enough time to set up the console and play both games before having to finally eat lunch 45 minutes later. My whole morning was gone. Just like that.

There's an hour of my life I'll never get back thanks to a launch day. I would do it again though. It was such a character building experience. Life changing even. I'll be glad to be able to tell my kids and my grandchildren one of those "back in the day" stories. They'll be dumbfounded at the prospect of having to wait 15 minutes just to pick something up. They'll probably call me "Crazy old line waitin' Grandpa".