Lies From My Childhood

I have very little experience with the desert. Shocking right. For me, the dessert was something Mario had to deal with in the second world of Super Mario Brothers 3. (Brief sidebar: I hate how much I am dating myself with that reference, and come to think of it I hate the fact that I am old enough that I can actually date myself. More than that, I am blown away by the fact that video games have been around for long enough that I can reference one and date myself. Remember when you couldn’t save a game, so that the only way to win was the sit motionless for hours and hours and hours while your parents went from being angry at how long you spent sitting on the couch to being convinced you were autistic. No? That was just me? Anyway back to poor old Mario in the desert). Given my frame of reference I sort of figured the key to survival in the desert was jumping. Got stuck in quicksand? No problem, just jump really fast. Are evil drug dealing Koopas getting you down? Easy solution, just jump on them. Although, if evil drug dealing Koopas are all of a sudden offering me mushrooms, then I might have a moral conundrum on my hands.

I am sad to report though that the depiction in Super Mario Brothers is not all that accurate. Jumping is in fact completely ineffectual (although to be fair I have yet to experiment on any actual drug dealers which might have to do with why the counter at the bottom of each post remains incredibly boring). So, what follows is a thoroughly incomplete list of things that are unrealistic about Mario in the desert.

First of all how could that little plumber, or his brother, not wear sunglasses. Now, I’m not a sunglass guy. I had one pair of expensive sunglasses in my life, and somehow I managed to get them run over (thankfully not while on my head). While in New York once every eighteen months or so I’d decide to try sunglasses, buy a five dollar pair, wear them for two days, lose them and then return to my trusty baseball cap. Here though, that’s not an option. Your choices are sunglasses or blindness. Except for those times when your options are sunglasses and blindness. If Mario refused to wear sunglasses than he should be to staring into the worse glare of his life, squinting grotesquely trying to make out vague blob like forms that may be koopas while praying to whatever god will listen to him that a turtle doesn’t come out of nowhere and sideswipe him while he drives along at twenty miles an hour. Ok, that may not have been entirely about Mario.

Another thing that Mario got wrong is walking in the desert. The LR and I did some light hiking the other day. We found a nice two mile trail in the desert. There was a lake nearby. I didn’t think a lake in the desert was allowed. I thought if you had a lake the desert naming committee would send an inspector and revoke your desert license. It seems illegal. But, what do I know? And anyway, I digress. Again.

Even for my mostly atrophied legs a one mile trail isn’t that tough. Now, my brain knows that the desert is made of sand. I have walked on sand before. In fact, I have spent a fair amount of time on beaches in my life; I know what sand feels like to walk on. But for some reason, my brain didn’t put together the fact that walking on the beach can be difficult with the fact that the desert is made out of sand and come up with the conclusion that walking in the desert is not like walking on a dirt path. It is more difficult, by a whole bunch. I blame Mario. I blame the fact that his stubby little legs churn right along the same as they do on any other world. He taught me that the ground in the desert is the same as the ground everywhere else, and I’m damn well going to believe it, even as my legs are working twice as hard as they are supposed to be.

I suppose as the months go by I’ll continue to look for things that don’t jive with Super Mario Brother and alert the world. After all, you need to know these things. I mean what’s next, frog suits won’t let you breath under water?

P.S. This post has nothing to do with the fact that I was bored one day and found a good Nintendo simulator to while away the hours with. I swear.

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