by Mike Covers

I’m currently 43 years old and counting (not by choice). So far, I have spent my 40s waxing nostalgic about my 20s and plan to continue this for the remainder of them. 

When most people put on their rose-colored glasses and gaze back on their younger years before marriage, children, mortgages, Trump presidencies, etc., they usually remember the same kinds of things. Parties. Bars. Prison. My own friends and I, however, spent these years not getting drunk (all the time, anyway) and instead shooting each other with lasers.

Don’t worry: these weren’t death lasers like those used in James Bond and Short Circuit movies. The only real consequence of getting shot by these lasers was losing the game, which was usually WORSE than actual death. This all took place at Lazerworks in suburban Philadelphia, which has since closed permanently and been transformed into a sports bar (something even worse than losing the game AND death combined). Seven of us would pile into my friend Bill’s Beretta, which comfortably fit maybe 3 people. My friend Jon and their brother would occasionally agree to ride in the trunk. 

While our games usually only lasted an hour or so, one night we all took advantage of a deal that allowed us to play as much as we could between 10PM and 1AM. It took place on a Saturday night, a time frame in which approximately 98% of other people our age were busy leading social lives which require as few laser guns as possible (the other 2% were with us at Lazerworks). Nevertheless, we continued on our quest, for defeating the Red Team was far more important than, say, meeting girls.

Upon entering, our first step was…you guessed it…using the rest rooms. 

Fortunately, the facilities had some degree of cleanliness, which meant it was safe to enter them without wearing an oxygen mask. However, something struck me as odd: in a building whose main activity was completely run by and dependent on computers, the toilets had manual flush handles. Yep, there was a total lack of easy-to-use, sensor-operated automatic toilets that you find virtually anywhere else. Manual flush. It was almost as if the toilets themselves were aimed against us and our voluntary immobile lifestyles. However, we all found the strength to MANUALLY flush them and return to the lobby.

Each of us paid our $25 for the session; next, we sat around and waited for the game to start amongst a collection of arcade games, which were probably bought with the money that Bill alone spent on summer laser tag sessions. After discussing news, politics, and other topics (i.e.—which specials we were going to take advantage of at Dennys later on), we entered the Loading Area. The Loading Area is a small room in which players accessorize themselves with the laser guns and laser-sensitive vests for the upcoming game. Players are also told the instructions of the game, which most of my friends were probably able to lip-synch. 

Finally, it was time to enter The Maze.

The Maze is the heart of laser tag, the virtual battleground. It consists of a labyrinth of walls to run amongst, as well as the “Energizer” for each of the two teams, the “Base” for each team, and, of course, the “Other Energizer” for each team. The “Base” for each team is a section of “The Maze” that opposing players must “deactivate” by shooting their “lasers” at a small circle of “light” in the “ceiling.” Each player is given six lives, which can be lost if the opposing team shoots you enough. If you lose all of your lives, you must go to one of your team’s two “Energizers,” which are small portals in the wall that reproduce your lives, available shots, and chances to get killed again.

The “Energizer” was always a regular home for me and my laser gun.

Our friend Brian was the self-appointed “leader” of our team, for he was the only one psychotic enough to dye the tip of his hair green to symbolize his Green Team loyalty. I am not kidding. He explained to each of us, in deep and frightening detail, his strategy to ward off the opposing team and deactivate their “base,” with as little physical movement as possible. Once the game began, we all completely forgot the strategy, said “Screw this” to our appointed positions, and concentrated only on running around and shooting people. At least, this is what I did. Of course, this might explain why I got shot by pretty much every opposing player and needed to visit the “Energizer” more times than everyone on both teams combined. The Maze, meanwhile, was not only full of artificial smoke and music loud enough to be heard overseas, but also full of pathetic, plastic vest-coated losers running around shooting toy lasers at each other and at specified points of light in the ceiling while green-haired Brian ran around like a lunatic, trying to get the Green Team to re-assume their positions in his plan.

As the hours wore on, a total of eight games were played. My friends continually racked up scores in the thousands, while I continuously stayed in scores that regularly match January temperatures. At times we were on the Green Team, other times the Red Team, and one time on the Sit in the Lobby and Drink Pepsi Team.

As we approached the last game, the computer system actually crashed, rendering the main game as useful as DOS. Thus, we were forced to play “Vintage Laser Tag”, in which we used obsolete equipment to play. We wore vests that looked more like kitchen table placemats than huge, fearsome wads of plastic. We also used lasers that resembled department store pricing guns, thus making everyone look like a group of people randomly bar-code-scanning opponents.

In conclusion, laser tag was fun, but never play over seven games in one session, unless you are handy with a bar code reader. Also, keep in mind the cardinal rules of the game: deactivate the enemy’s “base,” re-energize as often as needed, and never, EVER, listen to Brian’s strategies.

by Mike Covers

Today is December 25, which means that there are only 366 more days until Christmas.

I guess, technically speaking, TODAY is Christmas as well. And, like countless generations before you have done on the most joyous, holy, and stressful holiday of the year outside of Halloween, you are spending today reading my humor column, which I do appreciate. In fact, I urge you–at gunpoint, if I have to–to make this an annual holiday tradition of yours. If you already have a lot of holiday traditions, simply drop one, like going to church.

My parents gave my younger sisters and I splendid Christmases throughout our childhoods and continue to do so today, even though we are all in our 40s (my sisters and I, that is) (my parents are not in their 40s). Christmas morning would dawn and my sisters and I, still clad in pajamas, would wait impatiently at the top of the steps for our parents to wake up, frustrated that they wanted MORE than the 30 collective minutes of sleep we had last night. Once they finally did get up, which was at some point around Valentine’s Day, or so it felt, we would go downstairs, gather under the tree, and tear open our presents. Cool stuff, like Nintendo games and toys, were always from Santa Claus, while boring stuff like clothes was always from “Mom and Dad.”

At one point (either before I was 10, after I was 10, or at the age of 10), I made the discovery that, according to the “to/from” labels on my gifts, Santa Claus and my mom had identical handwriting. Realizing that my own supply of “Christmas magic” had been depleted, my parents calmly sat me down and explained that, since I was now old enough, I would be spending the rest of my Christmases helping them with all of the manual labor that goes into preparing our living room for Christmas morning, since my younger sisters still believed that there was a Santa Claus. This meant countless trips up and down the basement steps (even more if Sears had a particularly good sale that year), piling more and more presents under the tree and in our stockings. If you can learn anything from this, it is to KEEP BELIEVING IN SANTA CLAUS…well into retirement age if necessary. It’s less work and less steps.

Like most non-dysfunctional families, we had holiday traditions. Some of these traditions I loved and cherished, like getting presents; others I hated, like having to watch my sisters and parents open their presents (and, of course, going to church). 

One tradition, however, stands out from both the other traditions as well as anything considered sane behavior. My parents were–and still are–devout Catholics. They raised us to be the same, with varying degrees of success. I personally quickly learned that “God” and “Jesus” and “priests who leave altar boys alone” were about as real as Santa Claus…and I didn’t even need a handwriting match to prove it. Like all good atheists, upon learning what I consider to be the truth, I kept all of my comments to myself, except when my mouth was open. 

Anyway, like Catholics tend to do with everything else, my parents took it to an extreme at Christmastime: before we could open any presents on Christmas morning–ANY presents, even the boring clothes from Mom and Dad–we had to sing “Happy Birthday” to the baby Jesus.

Years before she had kids and blood pressure medication, my mom made ceramic crafts. One such craft was an entire Nativity set, complete with stable animals, the wise men, Mary, Joseph, the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, etc. The centerpiece was of course the newborn–and naked–baby Jesus, tenderly placed in his crib, also carved from porcelain (which had to be uncomfortable to lay on). 

And we all had to sing the full Happy Birthday song (without paying the Hill sisters any royalties, no less) to this fragile likeness of the Christ child. My parents did this to make sure that we kids knew the true meaning of the holiday season: they just spent half a year’s salary on 3 piles of gifts and if they want to make us sing to a tiny porcelain figure WE WILL DO IT.

Oh, and we had to kiss it after the song. Seriously.

That detail DEFINITELY had to have been suggested to them by a priest.

My sisters were always eager (TOO eager, if you ask me) to kiss baby Jesus. This is because they were, you know, GIRLS and were accustomed to kissing inanimate objects like New Kids on the Block posters and certain boyfriends of theirs. I, meanwhile, was–and still am–an unattractive, bespectacled nerd and wasn’t exactly kissing much of anything, inanimate or otherwise. I half-expected the baby Jesus to pull away from me and insist that we just be friends. I offered to kiss one of the other Nativity pieces, perhaps a camel (which at least had a tongue), but this idea was quickly rejected.

“Michael,” my mom said, using my full name to show she was serious. “Don’t be weird. Only kiss baby Jesus.”

The shameful things I did for you back then, Nintendo corporation.

Singing to and kissing ceramic baby Jesus (who never so much as gave us a “thank you” in all those years) was my most memorable Christmas tradition. As far as the most memorable Christmas itself?

On Christmas Day, 1990-something, my younger sisters and I were tearing open our gifts from Mom, Dad, and “Santa” as the saliva-covered baby Jesus looked on. The wrapping paper that my mom had spent actual money on and meticulously covered our gifts with was reduced to, within mere seconds–and even less time if the Nintendo logo was peeking out from underneath the paper–torn and crumpled wads of non-reusable, non-returnable garbage. It wasn’t long before the first trash bag was filled.

“Go into the kitchen and get another trash bag,” my mom said.

“Yeah, get another trash bag,” my dad added for emphasis. 

I wasn’t crazy about having to do this, since I still had gifts to open, but I did as I was told. I ran to our kitchen cabinet, peeled another trash bag off the roll, and ran back into the living room with it. Hopefully my doing so meant that I would get out of having to do the very unpleasant post-gift chore of taking these paper-filled bags out to the trash cans, the frozen tundra of the side yard stinging my bare feet. Today’s kids will never know that feeling, thanks to climate change. As more wrapping paper was discarded into the second bag, I didn’t notice my parents’ very confused, almost incredulous, glances in my direction. Apparently, this wasn’t the only thing to go unnoticed by me.

When the next bag was full, my parents asked my sisters–both of them–to fetch another bag from the kitchen instead of me.

They too protested having to do anything remotely constructive during this fun-filled morning, but eventually did as my parents asked. Once they go into the kitchen, all that we–and the rest of the neighborhood–heard was their high-pitched squeals. My parents and I went into the kitchen to see why exactly they had screeched their heads off. 

There, sitting on the kitchen table–thankfully not wrapped–was a huge birdcage with a blue-and-white-feathered, very startled parakeet sitting inside.

Our kitchen had historically been devoid of tiny, tropical birds, so my sisters had immediately noticed it (which was conveniently also their excuse as to why they didn’t bring in the next trash bag, even though I was more than midway through unwrapping my latest pile of NES games).

“We can’t believe you didn’t see it when you came out!” my mom told me.

I honestly hadn’t noticed. I was laser-focused on getting the newest trash bag and had paid zero attention to the rest of the kitchen. I was so preoccupied with my gifts that it is entirely possible that I would not have noticed the parakeet had the roll of trash bags been inside its cage. Admittedly, not noticing things is still a hallmark of mine today; just ask any of my friends, managers, any given tri-state area motorist, etc.

We had gotten a lot of gifts over the years, but none of them had heartbeats, so this was BEYOND exciting for us. My mom has a bad allergy to cats and, once piecing together how much constant care and attention a dog requires (they are basically toddlers that never age) with how lazy and careless my sisters and I are, also developed an allergy to dogs. Thus, the only pets we had growing up were fish. Not even GOOD fish, mind you. We’re talking about goldfish that were acquired by throwing ping-pong balls into bowls not much bigger than the fish themselves at our local township carnivals. These fish never lived more than a few days. Some were already dead when we won them. So a parakeet was definitely an upgrade in the pet department. We knew that the bird would provide countless hours of entertainment and even more countless hours of incessant chirping. But we also knew that it would be a major responsibility, one that we were old and, yes, mature enough to let our dad handle.

My sisters, somehow, got to name the parakeet. They decided on “Peppermint,” after the the popular holiday flavor (pumpkin spice). Sadly, Peppermint only lived for three months, which was several lifetimes in goldfish years. I think I was the one who found him dead at the bottom of his cage one day. Go figure: when he was ALIVE and BRAND new, I didn’t notice him there at ALL. Yet when he went to that big birdcage in the sky (and to that brown paper bag in our backyard), the discovery was all mine. Peppermint’s death really upset my dad, since he had just cleaned his cage the day before, pretty much for nothing. 

Peppermint was succeeded in subsequent years by Snowball, Bob, and, most recently, Ed (you can tell the point when my sisters were no longer in charge of issuing names). Unlike their ancestor, these birds all had lifespans numbering in years, making my dad happy that he got his $20 worth at the pet store.

However you and your own family celebrate the holiday, be it doing handwriting analysis on Santa Claus, kissing porcelain religious figures, or receiving stealth parakeets, never forget the true meaning of the season: Nintendo.

by Mike Covers

If you’re reading these words, then you were probably waiting for an update on a very important subject from me. I appreciate your patience. So, to keep you as up to speed as possible, you can rest assured that, as of this writing, I am no longer pissed off at Hot Topic.

Why? Because I now understand Hot Topic. I completely and utterly get it.

In case you didn’t already know, Hot Topic is a store that you will find in almost every shopping mall. Well, I mean real shopping malls: impossibly tidy monuments to consumerism where you cannot look at anything, including the restrooms, without it being festooned with some sort of corporate logo. Where groups of teenagers gather in clots of roughly 8,000 and engage in the timeless group activity of completely ignoring each other and texting people who are not in the group that evening. 

You WON’T find Hot Topic in the ever-increasing amount of dying malls that are out there, which look like real world versions of purgatory, but with less shopping options. You may find where a Hot Topic USED to be in those malls. If it isn’t perpetually abandoned, then it is probably filled with some temporary business like an overstock book retailer. You know those types of places. There are hundreds of books everywhere, not in any sort of order, not necessarily even on shelves, and certainly not containing any subjects that people actually want to read about (“The Complete History of the 1996 World Series”). All of the merchandise in the store appears to have been priced by the same style of pricing gun that is used by your local corner deli and, best of all, the owners likely haven’t even bothered to change the interior decor of the store all that much. Next to the long-dead Hot Topic’s signature goth doors, there will be 75 copies of the autobiography of Dave Coulier, haphazardly separated into three piles. 

Anyway, back when I first became aware of it, Hot Topic was a store that catered to the Goth subculture, which, in high school, was populated exclusively by kids who were dismissed by jocks, popular students, teachers, janitors, etc. as “freaks.” These were the kids who wore black clothes, black makeup, black underwear, etc. and had chains and piercings all over their bodies. Sitting on the sidelines of life and gym class, they smoked cheap weed out of clove cigarette paper and listened to bands like Marilyn Manson, Korn, and other death metal music whose lead singers sounded like they were trying to dislodge a roll of paper towels from their throat.

I avoided it at all costs.

It’s not because I was adamantly opposed to this subculture. Rather, I simply didn’t fit into it. I was a nerd, way back before being a nerd was cool. My clothes came from stores of my mom’s choosing. I didn’t need any sort of metal affixed to my body, unless it was something practical, like a watch or Game Boy. And my musical tastes were limited almost exclusively to 1980s sitcom openings (I have advanced well beyond this now; today, I also listen to 1990s sitcom openings). Hot Topic just wasn’t the place for me.

Years later, during college, I decided to go into Hot Topic on a whim. Little did I know that I was about to come face-to-face with an item that would change my opinion of the store forever.

A Super Mario Bros. steering wheel cover.

I couldn’t believe it. We were in the age of the first Xbox, the Nintendo Gamecube, and the umpteenth PlayStation. Classic Mario and the console that he rode into our homes on, the original NES, had faded into obscurity years ago. Yet here he was, all 8 bits of him, emblazoned onto a very new-looking steering wheel cover.

That wasn’t the only thing that the store had.

All over its section at the back of the store, there were brand spanking new items starring our favorite video game characters from the 1980s. Legend of Zelda backpacks! A keychain in the shape of the Atari controller! Pac-Man car mats! What was this magic? Oooh, this magic was $15 to start.

This period kicked off the era of exploiting nostalgia that is still going strong today. These days, you see 1980s and 1990s pop culture EVERYWHERE, from unnecessary movie reboots to re-released toy and beverage lines to the revival of Kurt Russell’s career. Companies have learned not only that my generation wants to jack off to the toys and joys of yesterday, but that we will pay top dollar for the privilege. The rebooted, re-released, now-seemingly-soulless culture of our youth is priced at—and oftentimes above—what it was back during its initial run. 

Hot Topic was a pioneer.

I happily indulged in the sensation through several iterations; year by year, Hot Topic would release merchandise featuring the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Rainbow Brite, Pee-wee Herman, you name it. And slowly, that merchandise started creeping forward from the rear of the store to the front shelves, where it could be admired by passing shoppers on their way to the Gap.

But then something terrible happened.

I started seeing Hot Topic selling merchandise that is CURRENTLY popular. South Park. Hunger Games. Even Barbie. Yes, BARBIE in HOT TOPIC. This merchandise gradually replaced the 1980s and 1990s pop culture items until they were no more. How dare they do this to me? How dare they “sell out” like this?! I would have retreated into my feelings and ultimately gone full emo, but that was pointless. After all, where would I get black clothes to wear and depressing music to listen to when the one store that specialized in that merchandise was now peddling Harry Potter scarves?!

Thankfully, I was able to scratch what was left of my nostalgic itch with the other 75,000 corporate retailers that were cashing in on it. And once it looked like that 80s and 90s pop culture WAS today’s pop culture, I lost interest. I am currently searching for new forms of culture in which to indulge, so let me know if you have anything in mind. Of course, with my luck, I’ll latch onto the world of, for example, 1950s Icelandic aircraft, and corporate America–possibly again led by Hot Topic–will find some way to exploit it and milk it for every last króna.

But on a recent visit to a mall that was not yet dying, I had an epiphany when walking past the Hot Topic. As the Doctor Who, Marvel superheroes, and other merchandise stared back at me through the window, it dawned on me that Hot Topic had not changed its business model at all. Rather, they adapted to society.

Let me explain.

Once the Internet became available 24/7 from anywhere on the planet, our culture shifted to one of instant gratification. Waiting for anything became as archaic as 56K modems, Prodigy, and last year’s iPhone. “The past” no longer encompasses prior decades, years, or even months. These days, five milliseconds ago is considered ancient history. Not only that, but we are currently on the THIRD reboot of the Spider-Man franchise!

On the surface, while Hot Topic may APPEAR to be catering to tastes that are currently popular, in reality, they are still peddling nostalgia, as nostalgic eras have caught up with present day thanks to this whole instant gratification culture. To YOU, Five Nights at Freddy’s—whatever the hell it is—might still be popular, but to its young target audience, it is already ages and ages old. When today’s college students walk into Hot Topic and see that merchandise from deep in the annals of the past (you know, this morning or anytime before that), they get the same warm nostalgic feeling that I got upon laying my eyes upon that classic Super Mario Bros. steering wheel cover so many years ago.

I understand, Hot Topic. I understand.