I am Bill Bixby
I am the lonely man, heart still broken. And while I know my heart will go on, for Celine has told me so, I can’t help but miss my NHL 10 every day.
I lost the game about three weeks ago to a crack in the ring of the disc. It played for a while, but I knew it was only a matter of time. My beloved game was not going to make it.
Since then I have been wandering around the Xbox Live landscape trying to find something to fill the void. Puzzle Quest, Madden, Gears of War 2, and NHL Arcade tried, but it was too large a void for them to even come close. That Celine Dion is full of $hit. My heart will go on, my @ss.
During the Olympics I went through a massive withdrawal. Watching the awesome display of hockey by organic players made me yearn for some time on the virtual ice with some pixelized players.
I know what you might be thinking. If you love the game so much, just get another? Well, I can’t do that. I won’t do that. Sixty dollars is enough to pay for a game. I am not going to double down.
I briefly considered NHL 2K10. It would certainly scratch that itch. I called my local Gamestop. They were out of NHL 2K10, but full of the knowledge and wisdom that must certainly be a prerequisite to working at Gamestop.
In response to my NHL 2K10 query:
Gamestop employee: We do have NHL 10 though (dude) and I hear it is a better game ( brah).
Me: Yeah, well I already had the game, but the disc cracked and I just don’t feel like buying the same game twice.
Gamestop employee: ( Reading from the sales card, ignoring the facts of the situation) Gotcha ( dude). So did you (totally) get our ( incredibly awesome) protection plan. (brah)
Me: No, I actually got the game at Best Buy.
Gamestop employee: (Dude) You ( totally) shoulda got the protection (brah, dude). You still can ( brah)
Me: Would that have worked on my Best Buy game?
Gamestop employee ( confused for a moment by the question) Nah ( Dude, Brah, Amigo). You need to buy a copy from us.
Me: Yeah that is what I figured. As I said I really don’t want to buy the same game again.
Gamestop employee: You want me to see if we have it used? (pardna)
Click.
So I travel this lonely road, missing my beloved and appreciating more than ever that Amazon.com exists and Gamestop is an option I can punt on. It does not help me with my current situation, but I can avoid future interactions like the above. Gamestop’s idea of helping scratch this itch was to use steel wool. So while I am back at step one, I appreciate the lack of abrasiveness in the online search for a reasonably priced copy of NHL 2K10.
I have one story with GameStop. I can’t call it a “horror” story, but I haven’t closed the chapter just yet.
It was October 09 of 2008 (that’s a fact because FIFA 09 was released on the 13th and the 9th was a Friday) and I had seen that GameStop.com had an offer online: pre-order this game and we will give you a FIFA ball. Since I didn’t want to deal with the possibility of the game getting lost in the mail, I went to my closest GameStop store and asked the clerk if they had that same deal for over-the-counter sales. The guy called the store manager (a skinny guy roughly about half my age) and I asked him the same question. The son of a barking mother didn’t flinch when he responded: “why yes sir, we do that too”. Since I had read that this was an online thing only, I asked a second time risking a snappy answer. Again the guy said: “yep, we can do that too”. I thought: “Cool! I guess you don’t loose anything buy asking nicely”.
Counting the days for the release of the game where I would EVENTUALLY put over 80 hours of my life in it, I stopped by that same store during Oct/13th’s evening on my way home.
As I approached the counter and handed out the receipt, the fella on the other side of the counter (a different guy than the one I initially spoke too a few days back), opened a drawer, pulled out the game and with a smile handed it out to me… with nothing else. Of course I immediately asked the automatic question (still with a smile of my own): “hmm, where is my ball? There should be a FIFA ball with my pre-order of the game”. The clerk’s response was: “sir, we only had that for online pre-orders”. Still with confidence (but starting to clinch my fist), I replied: “yes, but when I asked the store manager the same question last Friday, he told me I could get it anyway”. At that moment (and seeing I was getting frustrated), the clerked said: “let me call the manager”.
“That will solve the issue”, I thought again, until the manager came 2 minutes afterwards. IT WASN’T THE SAME GUY!!! “You are not the same person I spoke too last Friday. Is there another manager here? I talked to a younger guy, kind of skinny” (I said in a noticeable VERY angry voice). “Oh, you probably mean [insert name]. He no longer works here” was the guy’s reply.
At that moment I could feel the veins in my eyes as they got redder with anger (my eyes, not the veins). Both of my fists and my teeth were clinched, so the words made a hissing noise getting out of my mouth. I could sense the awkwardness of the dude in front of me, but that didn’t matter, I wanted blood to run, I wanted someone’s head on a platter.
Cutting an already long story, I do believe that IF they would have had a FIFA ball in that store (even for sale), I would have had it. I have also tried to rationalize my anger for that day. After all, it’s not the ball I was after, it was the f-ing principle. That bastard LIED to me and he did it TWICE while he was standing right in front of me. In retrospective, THAT is what really ticked me off so bad.
At the beginning I said that I haven’t closed the chapter just yet. Well, I definitely can’t remember the guy’s name… but I can surely remember his face. This is not a huge area like NY. I WILL run into that “filio di la gran putana” one of these days. Oh yes, I will… oh yes, I will.
X
Dude! I hear ya, brah!