I used to have one of those Nintendo Switch consoles (the key phrase is “used to”). The system is nice because it’s small so it easily fit into my luggage; plus there’s not much weight to it so the Switch is perfect for the traveling lifestyle. My favorite game is Fortnite and the premise is simple, you just run around and kill people. I’d played it quite a bit for a thirty year old who was living in a bungalow out in the jungle at the time...
One evening, I was playing online in a team deathmatch. In this mode, you’re working with three other randomly selected people to go up against ninety six players that are divided into twenty four other teams (four players per party, one hundred bodies in total). For me, normally it’s a win damn near every match but for whatever reason I just couldn’t catch a break this time. These things happen to everyone at one point or another obviously but to make things even worse, it just so happened that my teammates were a bunch of little bastards who loved talking smack.
The three kids were probably between ten and twelve years old. They were loud, obnoxious and every time I got killed or needed help, they had something wise to say or gave a snarky little attitude like “Wow, you got dropped again!? What is this, your first time playing?” Typically I don’t use the microphone because it can be distracting but since my performance was so terrible, turning it on was necessary. As soon as I start talking, the three kids began making comments about the sound of my voice:
What are you, like fifty years old!? Hahaha
Wow! we’re playing with an old man! Hahaha
I bet he has a receding hairline and still lives with his parents!!! hahaha
Now my frustration was at its peak. “These mother f—” Just as I was about to throw my controller at the wall I stopped myself and said “Matt, you’re either going to break this entire system right here and now or, you can be a halfway decent person and give the Switch to those kids who are always playing outside of your favorite restaurant down the road.” Those are good kids and besides, in the coming weeks I was going to be back on the move again so the extra room and lesser weight would be nice. It was either the Switch goes or my books but those have sentimental value.
So, I packed up the console and brought it with me to that restaurant. The lady who owns and operates it is the mother of those kids so when I’d approached her, she was a bit confused at first. She speaks English fairly well but by no means is she fluent so I had to explain to her a few times that I didn’t want the Switch anymore and that her children could have it instead. Meanwhile, they were standing around us playing and quickly became aware of what was going on. There were five of them if I remember correctly; the three oldest were girls while the youngest two were boys; all of which aged from I’d say about one year old to eleven or twelve. I didn’t think that they would know what a Nintendo is but they sure did. The entire group was so grateful; the mother, kids, even the lady who cooks was excited. Some of them were literally jumping up and down with joy, it was awesome.
This was an amazing moment for me because I’d never given a gift at random like that before. Suddenly a strange, fuzzy feeling started brewing up in my nose and eyes started to water. I thought to myself “Holy shit, Matt might start crying right now.” I began blinking a bunch of times to fight the tears and refrained from holding eye contact with anyone. “Compose yourself Matthew, compose yourself.” That’s when I went into my mind and thought about those cyberbullies from earlier; I began to imagine snatching the Switch from the little girl’s hands and smashing it on the ground. The whole thing shatters into a million pieces and everyone starts looking at me in confusion and panic…
“Hahaha you little punks thought I was just gonna give you my Switch!? None of you can handle a Nintendo, now go back to kicking rocks you losers!!! Hahaha”
The oldest girl bursts into tears and that’s how all the others knew that this was a big deal. They follow suit and now all five of them are crying. Even the one year old was sobbing and he definitely doesn’t know what a Nintendo Switch is. Keep in mind, these were some of the cutest, most innocent little children that you can imagine. Everyone was in shock as I stood there maniacally laughing over the shattered pieces. I stomp on the screen a few more times until the mother starts screaming at me. “What is wrong with you!? Get out of here! You… You monster!!!”
Reality begins to set back in and now I’m thinking: Matt, stop! Focus!!! Why can’t you just embrace and enjoy this experience for what it is? Everyone is so happy right now and you have to go and imagine some over the top, completely inappropriate, false scenario. Just enjoy the moment for once in your life… I snapped out of it, paid for dinner and began to walk off when the lady stopped me. “Excuse me, are you busy right now? We’re not sure how to set up the Nintendo, so could you please help us?”
“Yes, of course.” I was happy that she’d asked me to stay. Normally I just go home right after dinner and this was my last night in Khao Lak so I didn’t want it to end. After maybe twenty or thirty minutes of small talk and setting up the system, we wished each other well and parted ways.
You might be thinking “Awww, what a nice guy. He did such a good thing by giving those kids his Nintendo Switch.” But the fact of the matter is that this wasn’t a selfless act and I’m a decent man at best. If this was truly a selfless act then I wouldn’t have shared this story. I only gave those kids my system so that I could imagine destroying it out of sheer hatred for those cyberbullies from earlier. Now, if it were up to me, those kids would have been cleaning up the broken pieces before going to bed early. I’m talking about the cyberbullies of course…
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