Before the advent of today’s advanced electronic gaming systems and cell phones with their apps, there were handheld games powered by AA or AAA batteries.
Most of these allowed the user to play precisely one game.
That is, until Tiger Electronics came out with Bo Jackson Football/Baseball in 1990. This was, at least to those who couldn’t afford the pricey Game Boy, the ultimate game to have because you could play two sports on it, just as Bo Jackson himself played for many years in both the NFL and the major leagues.
At the ripe age of 7, I had (and occasionally completed) chores loosely tied to an allowance of $1 a week. Bo Jackson Football/Baseball was highly coveted in my social circle, and I had to be the first to have it.
The savings in my kiddie safe were meager, so it took weeks and weeks of agonized waiting as I inched toward my goal of $25 (roughly $45 in today’s money). I even volunteered for extra chores at home, since I was too young to be trusted by neighbors with a lawnmower or shears.
These extra efforts cut a few weeks off my timeline, but it still felt like an eternity before I had my twenty-fifth dollar and Bo Jackson Football/Baseball was within my grasp.
Impatient, I asked my father every night to drive me to Toys “R” Us a few suburbs away, but we always seemed to finish dinner just at the store’s closing time. Finally, I lost my cool, and my father placated me by agreeing to go early Saturday morning.
The Toys “R” Us he took me to was in a bad part of Cleveland, so the high-value electronics were kept behind a locked metal grate. An imposing bouncer/security guard type stood behind the grate, looking out as if from a teller’s window.
I bounded down the aisle to the open electronics section and grabbed the card that, once I’d paid, would authorize the guard to liberate my very own Bo Jackson Football/Baseball game from its steely cage. The card had a picture of the game on the front and a barcode on the back.
I sprinted to the cashier with this prize in hand before Dad had even gotten past the register.
The clerk scanned the card, and I started counting out my $1 bills. Then I heard him say that the game came to $26 and change with taxes. I didn’t have the money.
My father, a tax lawyer, was not sympathetic. He’d known all along that I’d saved only $25. I’d been telling him for weeks the exact cost of the game and how close I was to getting there. So what now?
Dad offered me a deal—the first of many deals, as I was growing up, that were actually lessons, a bit like the “intricate scenarios” George Bluth used to use to teach his children in Arrested Development. The deal was not structured to my advantage. My father would front the extra dollar and change I needed to buy the game—if I would forgo five weeks of allowance. If I declined the deal, we’d go home and come back in a week or two when I’d saved the money.
“Please,” I begged, “can’t you just buy it now and I’ll work really hard and pay you every penny in a week?” My father replied—and my memory is hazy, but this was the gist of it—“If you can’t afford something, and you feel you need it, you have to know how lending works.”
It was plain I would get no amnesty. So I grudgingly agreed to a bad deal.
Back at home, I cut open the theft-resistant packaging, freeing the game, and removed the back panel. Then I reached into the battery drawer in our dining room to get two AA batteries. Only there was a problem: There weren’t any. Yes, we had AAA, C, and even D batteries, but no AA.
“What’s wrong, Jimmy?” Dad asked, popping into the dining room. “Aren’t there any batteries?” When I told him there weren’t, he responded, “Well, if you have some money, you can buy some. Otherwise you’ll have to wait until we need more AA batteries for the household.”
I don’t remember what happened then. Maybe I’ve blocked it out, since the combination of disappointment and weighty life lessons was a lot to take in. I do know that later that very afternoon I was happily absorbed in playing my game—to the envy of my friends.
All these years later, my father denies hiding the AA batteries, but I am positive he did. However that may be, the crash course in foresight is one I’ve never forgotten. I’m even looking forward someday to teaching it to children of my own.
