LAFAYETTE, La.— Birthday boy Robert Leaumont was seen excitedly reading the back of his Nintendo eShop gift card during a car ride home from GameStop, sources apparently not driving fast enough confirm.
“Sure I’ve only had my eye on this for the past few weeks, but that’s like a lifetime when you’re cool and 12 years old like me,” said Leaumont, as he mouthed the words outlined in the card’s terms and conditions. “All my friends already got one of these for Christmas, and I’m not about to waste any more time falling behind those lame-os. But at the rate we’re going, I’m going to be 20 by the time we get back and the eShop servers will have already been shut down.”
Leaumont’s mother, Mara Richmond, shared how this took her back to the days of her youth.
“It does my heart good to know that my Bobby shares a few similarities with his boring old mom, even if he doesn’t like to admit it,” said Richmond, not even trying to make that yellow light. “You see, when I was his age, I spent my return trips reading up on the game lore and trying to piece together the layout of the overworld from just the pictures on the back of the box alone. And even if my dad had no idea what an ocarina or a Zelda was, he was willing to listen to me babble on and on about everything I had gleaned from those buzzword descriptions and low-res screenshots. He also never tried to cut those moments short by driving faster than the residential speed limit allowed, and only ever called it quits once we had already been home for an hour and I was still buckled up, yakking about these things called ‘Gorons.’”
Leaumont continued to ponder the intricacies of his gift card, long after anyone else seemed to care.
“So if I’m reading this correctly, since I purchased the physical edition of eShop, I’m to be granted some bonus in-game currency once I input the download code into the debug menu,” said Leaumont, all alone in his mom’s SUV, daylight fading. “And since my buddies say eShop is this big, open-world experience, I’m debating whether I should spend this in-game currency on weapon upgrades now or save it for when I fight the big bad later on. Who’s the final boss of eShop supposed to be, anyway? This guy in the red hat on the front?”
At press time, Leaumont was reportedly in his room, drawing a map of the eShop menu to help him better navigate future playthroughs.
