TNP 32 "Video-Game Purchase"

A Chapter by dw817

"Let's see," the clerk said, "That'll be $190 for the unit, and $10,800 for the games, with tax giving eleven-thousand eight-hundred sixty-nine dollars and zero cents, paid in advance, please."

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THE NANCY PRINCIPLE

My time in working for the government during the Savings & Loan Crisis of 1990 with a beautiful
woman who took care of absolutely everything for me in my employ. And I mean EVERYTHING.

© September 2013 Written by David Wicker
Please do not reprint without permission

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CHAPTER 32 - VIDEO-GAME PURCHASE

* * *

This chapter is Rated: EVERYONE

Having arrived at Funcoland, curiously, there were only a few people parked outside.

"I wonder where everyone is ?" I commented to myself as Smithers stepped out of the limousine from ahead of me.

Smithers first let out Tricia, then opened my door and commented, "Perhaps they ahr still in school, suh ?"

I nodded. That was a good answer. It was still before 3pm after all. I approached the entrance eagerly, looking over the wall stickers of new and upcoming games and systems.

Now, there is one thing I DEFINITELY liked about Funcoland which no store allowed you to do today, and that was, you could try before you buy, literally, right in the store !

You could ask to see a video-game and they would plug it in, hand you the controls, and you could try it out. And if you liked it, you could take home that very game they were showing you so you could be assured that it would work when you took it home. What a genius sales tactic ! I wished other stores did that.

Entering, I only saw only one person behind the register with no customers at all and he waved to me as we stepped inside. Smithers saw 3-chairs connected to each other by a long metal bar underneath, I guess to prevent someone from walking off with them, and he sat down in one chair reaching for a video-game magazine on a low acrylic table to the side of him.

While me and Judy beamed broadly with grins like we had entered the Pearly Gates Of Heaven, the look on Tricia's face was quite different. She smirked, seeing all the bright poppy colored games and noisome sound-effects and display screens and shrugging, sat down a seat from Smithers and pulled some paperwork from her purse to look at it along with that calculator again.

"Don't be too long." she said tiredly, "We still have a lot to do when we get back."

I nodded. I knew Tricia would tell me about the important paperwork when she was ready. Judy went to the front register while I went to the shelves to pull out what I wanted. I had it all figured out from reading an earlier Nintendo Power magazine.

As for me I knew exactly what games I wanted to buy from here and I was certain they had them as they were top of the popular charts.

I pulled out the following boxes: Final Fantasy 2, Final Fantasy 3, Final Fantasy Mystic Quest, Out Of This World, Flashback, Arcana, Lufia, Lufia 2, Legend Of Zelda, Blackthorne, Batman Forever, Battle Cars, F-Zero, Super Mario World, and Warp Speed !

Judy was having a harder time than me. I walked up to the register balancing all my games and could hear the clerk talking to her, "Ma'am. We really can't do that."

"Can't do what ?" I asked, curiously over the stack in my arms ?

Judy spoke at once, "I told him I wanted to pre-pay for the Nintendo 64."

I nodded, "Judy, that's not out yet. It's not due for several years."

Judy stamped her foot, "I know that ! But I read about it and wanted to get it early before they sell out."

"That's years from now." I couldn't help but smile. If she was anything like me, she'd likely change her mind once it did finally come out cause likely Sega or Atari would have a similar competitor, and likely better.

I added, seeing she was being a bit stubborn, "Come on Judy, you said you wanted a video-game system. Why don't you get one now, that they have instead of wait for one that may turn out to not be any good, despite it's hardware advantage ?"

She puzzled her lip for a bit. Finally, "What do you have ?" she asked the clerk.

He spoke but it was clear he was hoping she knew what she wanted like me. And it was obvious she didn't.

"Well, let's see, miss. We have Super Nintendo of course, very popular," and he pointed to the boxed games I held in my hand, "like you're interested in, sir. We also have, just in, a Turbo Graphics, one of them, but not very many games for it yet. Of course we have the Sega Genesis, good old Nintendo, and a box in the back marked for discount, an Atari 2600 of all things !"

"Is that it ?" Judy asked, rubbing her chin. Clearly she was trying to get a great system but she didn't know which one that would be.

"That's all we have for now." the clerk said. He shrugged. It was clear he was eager to make a sale but he didn't know how to approach someone that wasn't already familiar with the game units like I was.

"Humm ..." she said, sounding a little disappointed in thought and pulled back so I could make my purchases.

"Okay, so what all do you have here ?" he asked. He picked up each box and typed out the code for them. (This was prior to UPC scanning). And rang up the total.

"Anything else you want ?"

I shook my head. This was the cream of the crop. There were a few others I knew and were curious about but they could wait.

"You do have the Super Nintendo deck to go with these, right ?" he added.

I nodded.

He smiled and added enthusiastically, "Well if you've got that, you know about the Super Gameboy coming out, right ?"

* * *

I looked in the counter where under glass he had several Gameboy cartridges, "Yeah, I heard about it. It'll let you play your Gameboy games on your television and even color them ! It sounds cool ! I can't wait for it to come out ! I wanna try out one of the Final Fantasy games on it."

"You betcha." he agreed. "Then Let's see ! Okay, okay, right. My ! You're quite the gamer ! That'll be $518.40 with tax."

Tricia, seeing she was needed got up then and spoke, "Come on, let's finish up, kids." which I thought was pretty funny for her to say because she was only 5-6 years older than me. But in truth, she did act a lot more mature than me or Judy so maybe there was some truth to that statement ?

She handed the clerk her credit card and he rang it up.

"Yes ma'am. That's fine. Did YOU figure out what you want then, miss ?" and looked to Judy.

She still looked puzzled at the choices, clearly getting frustrated at not knowing anything about the systems themselves.

"How about a nice Sega Genesis ?" the clerk offered in a friendly tone. Unfortunately Judy still didn't know anything about the systems so she looked just as confused.

I added in his support, "Yeah ! That's a good system, Judy. You can play Strider on the Genesis ! I don't know how many quarters I burned up in the arcade playing that great game ! You have a guy with a sword that goes vyaaoow !" and I waved my hand down, accidentally knocking off a few boxed games from the counter.

"Sorry." I apologized reaching down to pick them back up.

The clerk smiled at me, "Hey, they're your games now, but yeah, you might wanna take better care of them. Want a big bag for all that to keep them safe, buddy ?"

"Sure." I said and picked up one to look at. I did that, whenever I got in trouble, I tried to distract myself with something else, kind of my way of me silently saying I'll behave now. Often it worked and no-one got on my case after a single reprimand when I did something wrong.

He took my games and shoved them all in a big bag and handed them to me as I continued to read the back of one of them.

"Okay," Judy finally said, "I'll take the Genesis, but I want all the games for it."

"ALL OF THEM !?" the clerk said, not certain he heard her correctly.

Tricia handed her Credit Card back to him but he waved it away with a hand.

He addressed Judy directly, "Miss, there are a little over 700 games for the Sega Genesis ! We carry maybe 300 of those."

Judy continued to look at him intently without blinking. She was dead-set on getting all these games, especially since she had such a whopping budget to work with and she didn't get a computer after all.

He added, "I tell you what," and he looked at Tricia who seemed serious as well. "Since you look like you're really intent on this and you're credit is clearly good. We'll send those to you by delivery. Here - " and he reached for a form under the desk.

"Normally we use this to mail out our stuff to other stores but we can use it here. Just scratch out the address at the top and put yours," and he pointed, "here."

Judy reached for the pen but Tricia intercepted her, "I'll take care of this." then she looked at the clerk. "Can she go ahead and get the game unit today and that game - Brighter ... what was it ?"

"Strider !" I said correcting her and this time carefully waved my arm like it was his sword, "Vyaaow !" without dropping my bag.

Judy giggled at my demonstration, "It sounds like a cool game !"

"Yeah, it really is ! I wish they'd make a movie or something." and then me and Judy receded towards the middle of the store as I talked to her about techniques on the levels and some tricks I knew about how to beat the bosses in it.

"That's fine." Tricia said, and she filled out the paperwork for the mailing of it and all the games.

The clerk looked at it. "You'll need to pay in advance now, too." and he reached for her credit card this time.

She nodded and set on the counter. He then left it and stepped from around the counter and went to the Genesis game wall and counted across and down. He actually only had about 240 games in stock. He then went back behind the counter and into the back room and spoke to the manager there. There was a moment of disputed arguing.

Then finally the clerk spoke muffled by the door as the manager listened intently. The manager was heard then and said out loud, despite the closed door, "Really !"

Then both came out. The clerk had a big gray plastic empty box and he went to the shelves taking down each Sega Genesis game and carefully arranging them in the box as the manager beamed a broad smile to Tricia and looked at the paperwork his clerk had done.

Back then they didn't have empty boxes on the shelves. I guess theft has increased over the years.

Then he pulled a calculator out from under the desk and added up the totals. It was clear it was going to be at least 4 or more boxes to get them all of them together.

"Okay !" the manager said enthusiastically and carefully typed in values on the register, several in fact, but it was clear he was multiplying by the # of cartridges instead of their actual cost which varied slightly from one to the other.

"Let's see," he said, "That'll be $190 for the unit, and $10,800 for the games, with tax giving eleven-thousand eight-hundred sixty-nine dollars and zero cents, paid in advance, please."

I heard the total and whistled. Judy immediately came up in apology, "I'm so sorry ! I didn't know it would be that much !"

Tricia addressed me, "David, we can do this, but the excess is coming out of your own fund, is that alright with you ?"

* * *

Judy immediately faced me imploringly, "Oh please David ! Please please ple - "

I interrupted her smiling, "Yeah, that's fine. That's not much out of a million is it ?"

Tricia immediately gave me a dark look squinting her eyes angrily at me and right then I realized I shouldn't be advertising that I had that much money to work with.

Fortunately it went right by the sales manager, "So we do have an OKAY on this purchase then ?" he asked, rubbing his hands, eager not to lose this much profit in one day. They didn't even sell this many games in a month !

"Yes, that's fine." Tricia said.

He nodded, glad this tense part was over. But before he continued on the register, he opened it up and took out the half-used spool of register paper and replace it with a new one. Then he locked back down the system, inserted a strange key for authorization from his vest pocket, and hit the PRINT button confirming the sale.

And it printed. And printed. And PRINTED ! And we sat there for a full-minute as the paper curled out of the thing, determined to list every single cartridge Judy purchased today. It was a good idea for him to start a fresh spool as likely the other would've run out before it finished.

The clerk then took a highlighting marker and wrote on the side of a box that he then handed to Judy, the Genesis unit, and the Strider game in a small bag from under the counter. She then stood back knowing the receipt was for Tricia and once it finally finished Tricia spoke, "I need a rubber-band for this please ?"

The manager fished one out of the drawer and handed it to her as she carefully wound up the printout in her hands. Then he spoke, "Okay ! We will need at least 72-hours to get all those games sent to the address you listed."

And then he looked at the address again scratching his face, "You know. I'm - familiar with that neighborhood. I thought it was closed off ?"

Tricia bristled, "I'm - " and then softened her tone, "We - are all living there, so I think you are mistaken, sir."

"I see." he said. Then he penned in a few more figures on the mailing receipt. "Just a second." and he went in the back and I could hear an old Xerox machine start up.

He came back a moment later and handed her a print-out, 2-pages long. "Here's your copy, miss."

Tricia took it and folded it up in her purse and we started to walk out. The manager looked expectantly at Smithers who was by the door, "Can I help you with anything, sir ?"

"No suh." Smithers said politely, taking the big Genesis box from Judy so he could carry it and we all exited the store. Me with my big bag of games and Judy with her littler one.

"That's fine." the manager said, "By all means, please come again !" It was obvious he was more than happy to have made such an incredible sale in one day.

Back inside I saw them both talking busily to each other, gesticulating with their hands about what needed to be done and then the clerk went to the back room, likely to get another box. I saw the manager sit down in one of the customer chairs stroking his chin thoughtfully. His assistant went to turn around the sign to show they were closed.

Apparently they didn't want any disturbances while they worked it all out.

Walking back to the limousine I half-expected to see a round cut on Tricia's side of the window but there wasn't. I breathed a sigh of relief.

Smithers opened up the trunk and set in the Genesis unit. "No moh room now." he said and closed the trunk. I had forgotten my biggo computer was in there along with the monitor and everything else. Clearly another car could not have had all the trunk space this one had, but we were pushing it.

"And on that note," Tricia spoke in a babyish voice, "now, do all the children have their toys ?"

"Yes ma'am." I said and even Judy nodded, not complaining we were being talked down to for having received such great gifts.

"Good !" she said imperiously, as Smithers opened the door for her, "Because NOW we need to get home and David, I need you to look over some paperwork and give me some signatures to get this thing going. Judy, you will meet one of my servants, Trudy, and she will tell you where you will go and your new duties."

"Trudy ? From BBI ?" I asked as Smithers opened the door for me and Judy.

Tricia looked at me for a moment stretching back in her seat, "Yes, David. The same. And you can thank her for you not being fired from work on your first day."

"Fired ?" Judy queeped. "What happened, David ?" She was obviously interested in what occurred.

"It's - a long story." I said and thought back to my first few days there, definitely tense ones.

"Well, tell me !" she said impatiently. "Tell me ALL about it !"

"Maybe later." I said and looked out the cut window hoping that would end the discussion. We still didn't figure out who it was that made the cut and what were they looking for ?