It all started at an early age; I got my first pair of glasses at only six months of age and was forever destined to be a nerd. It was only a matter of time before video games got a stranglehold on my life, but I only made it to the age of four before the first controller was thrust into my hands and I was addicted to the likes of Super Mario, Metroid, and Kirby.

Video games crossed over into my reality on a regular basis. My imaginary friend was a sheet called Venus Flytrap, based on the Piranha Plants of Super Mario Bros. and I recorded my own soundtracks on cassette tapes by singing them in "doot doots".





Blissfully unaware of console wars, I enjoyed both Mario and Sonic games. I watched the cartoons and got them recorded on tapes from my grandpa when they were only on cable TV.





With my mind and imagination running wild in the worlds of gaming, I reached the age when children are asked what they want to be when they grow up. Certainly, becoming an astronaut was high on my list, but after I heard about the potential for motion sickness and vomiting, I decided against it. That left me two choices: take up the family trade as an HR manager or become a video game character.

Video game character it was! Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was the game of the day and Tails was by far my favorite character - not yet the obnoxious thing it became when it got a voice and 3D movement. I stuck a rope in the back of my pants by the middle and just like that I grew twin tails! Maybe I couldn't actually move them or fly with them, but I could still run around with them while grabbing rings from this baby toy set we still had. My future career as a flying fox was all but set in stone.

Unfortunately, my parents never understood or appreciated my potential as a fox. It soon became apparent that I would never enter fox college or the floating ring collection agency or even the loop-de-loop maintenance crew with my parents' approval. That Christmas, they nudged me in the direction of a career goal which they thought to be more realistic and which still lied within my scope of video game character professions. That Christmas, I unwrapped a plunger.

And I loved it! Tails was out and Mario the plumber was in! It was a small plunger, probably meant for sinks although I didn't really know and never used it for its intended purpose. It was the perfect size for me to run around and hit things with. It could also be thrown and used to take out any dangerous turtles in my path. But there was one thing a plunger could do that an ordinary stick from the park couldn't do, and that was stick to walls.





Upon this discovery, I gleefully attached my plunger to the kitchen wall.

And then removed it again.





And suctioned off a chunk of the wall with it.