Page 14 - Old School Gamer Magazine Issue #39 FREE Edition

lifted and my eyes widened. I had a plan.
SO LET’S GO CAMPING!
I knew that if I was going to get
my PlayStation 2 on launch day, I would have to stake out the store. I started prepping. I watched weather reports. I scouted the Circuit City parking lot for optimal parking proximity to their front door. I bundled together the best cold- weather gear I owned (which wasn’t much at the time). So confident of my strategy, I even commissioned
a local mall kiosk to make a
custom shirt for me prominently emblazoned with “PS2 First in
Line” on the front. I was going big! Fortunately, I was able to finagle my work schedule around the launch schedule.
Wednesday the 25th was finally here. I arrived at Circuit City around 7:30 PM that night. Once again, I attempted to ply the manager for information. This time around,
the manager was a little more amenable to sharing. Without citing exact numbers, he told me that their store had received a very small number of PlayStation 2s and that they would be made available for purchase the next morning when their store re-opened at 9 AM. I immediately turned around, walked out of the Circuit City store, and
sat down on the pavement two feet from their front door. I was, in fact, first in line.
Two hours passed and it was time for the store to shut its doors for the night. The store manager locked up, then headed to his car. Suddenly, he halted and reached into his pocket as if he had forgotten something. He turned back in my direction and subtly slipped me a small piece
of paper. It had a #1 on it. He told me that he wasn’t supposed to give those out until the following morning, but he recognized my dedication. It was a line order slip that would secure your place for purchase. He went on to say that the store had only received ten PlayStation 2 units! Subsequently,
he had only ten numbered slips to give out to anyone who showed up in line prior to them re-opening the store. The manger’s only stipulation was that I remain in line and under no circumstances was I to share the knowledge of the store having only ten units in stock with anyone else who appeared.
Not long after the manager departed, a legion of like-
minded PlayStation 2 hunters began trickling into the Circuit
City parking lot. As the hours
ticked away, the line of campers metastasized to an absurd number that snaked around the large brick building. It wasn’t long before I could no longer see the end of the line. It was the biggest crowd of customers this store had ever seen... and they weren’t even open for business. When asked if I knew anything about what was behind the twin glass doors of the retail fortress, I remained mum.
Overnight, the temperature plummeted to the mid-forties. For the uninitiated, enduring forty- degree temperatures in absence of physical movement and creeping sleep deprivation is not typically recommended without the promise of great reward.
Excitement increased as the warmth of morning staved off hypothermia. Half an hour before their doors were to re-open, the manager reappeared. He just smiled and shook his head as
he unlocked the store’s doors. Before entering, he handed out the nine remaining line slips to the lucky campers
to the left of me. He repeated the imperative: “Don’t leave the line!” The gentleman
who had received the #2 slip suspiciously inquired as to why I wasn’t handed a slip. I just shrugged and mumbled some half-baked explanation. No time for slip-ups here. I was in the end game.
After what seemed like days of waiting, Circuit City’s
doors slid open and the manager welcomed us inside. It was a seemingly slow-motion walk to the sales counter where that beautiful, blue box awaited me. I turned in my numbered slip and gleamed
a triumphant grin. It was mine, finally. My trophy. My grail. My Red Ryder BB gun.
On the 26th day of October in the year of our Lord 2000, I snagged my PlayStation 2 along with FantaVision, SSX, TimeSplitters, DOA2: Hardcore, Unreal Tournament, a multi-tap, a memory card, and three extra DualShock
2 controllers (which sucked for
the other nine customers in line because Circuit City only had ten extra controllers in stock, one for each console... yeah, I still feel a bit guilty about that).
So, what did I do next? Drove home, hooked up the new console, played it for about five minutes, and then completely crashed. Adrenaline depleted and still thawing, sleep was the only viable outcome at that point.
Hope you enjoyed my little tale! Now, if you’re good boys and girls, I’ll tell you all about the time when I camped out for my PlayStation 3 system!
SPOILER ALERT: I stayed in the back of a broken-down van in a FuncoLand parking lot. Good times..
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OLD SCHOOL GAMER MAGAZINE • ISSUE #39