Although I'm an open-minded, tolerant person, I couldn't help but laugh hysterically at the 15 geeks camped out in front of the local video game store last night. What a bunch of pathetic losers! No job, no girlfriend, no life - they probably still live with their moms. P. Diddy himself couldn't energize these lazy slobs enough to get off their backsides and vote for John Kerry, but they have enough piss 'n vinegar to sit out all night in the freezing cold for a stupid video game.
I shook my head and went inside.
"Is my Special Deluxe Boxed Limited Edition Directors Cut of Halo 2 in yet?" I asked the cashier.
"Yes, it's in," she replied, "but we can't give them out until midnight."
"YOU CAN'T GIVE THEM OUT?" I screeched in shock and horror.
She pointed outside. "Would there be a line of desperate, 30-year old virgins out front if we could?"
"That does it," I growled. "I'm angrier than a Jiralhanae with an bellybutton full of Needler barbs! What is your name?"
"Myranda," she told me. "With a 'Y'."
"Well, Myranda with a 'Y', I'd like to speak to the manager, please."
"I am the manager," she snipped, "and you aren't getting Halo 2 until midnight."
So it was like that, was it? It looked like I'd have to lay a bit of the ol' Chomstein Charm on her.
"I'VE HAD THIS GAME ON RESERVE FOR FIVE YEARS, YOU CRAZY *****!" I screamed, stomping my feet for effect. "I WANT IT I WANT IT I WANT IT GIMME GIMME GIMME NOWWWWW!"
"Midnight," Myranda sighed, rolling her eyes.
"FASCIST!" I screeched and stormed out.
The most highly anticipated video game of the year, Halo 2 picks up where Fahrenheit 9-l1 left off. Despite Fraulein Malkin's naive assertions to the contrary, the game is a "damning condemnation of the Bush Administration's adventure in the Middle East," and a searing indictment of Amerikkka's systematic extermination of its indigenous peoples. So it's no wonder that when I returned to the store at 11:45, the long line of hopeless nerds now stretched all the way down the block and around the corner.
"To hell with this," I spat with frustration, and went home. I have to work in the morning. I have a JOB and a LIFE. I can't be standing in line with a bunch of fat, greasy, social parasites all night.
So at 5:45 a.m. this morning, I returned to the store once again to discover the line was gone and the geeks had completely disappeared. I quickly parked my car, bounded up to the entrance, and pulled the door. It was locked. I pulled the other door. It was locked, too. I pulled the first door again. Still locked. I pressed my face to the glass. It was dark inside, but I could swear I saw movement in the shadows. They were probably getting ready to open up any second. I bet if I just counted to thirty under my breath, they'd show up and unlock the doors. 1...2...3...4...
Suddenly, someone coughed beside me. I looked up to see three other dudes, also pressing their faces against the glass.
"Dude," one said. "Are they open?"
"I don't know, dude," I replied, checking the doors again. "The sign says they open at 9:00, but maybe it's just a tease. Starbuck's across the street is open, so why isn't the game store?"
"It doesn't make any sense!" another guy screamed, pounding frantically at the glass. "HAS THE WHOLE WORLD GONE MAD?"
"Calm down," I told him. "It's only three hours. A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over."
I checked the doors one last time and then went in to work. At 10:45, I called ahead to the store to insure that they were indeed open, then feigned a seizure in my cubicle and got the rest of the day off.
I sped back to the store and dashed inside. Alas, there was sweet Myranda, holding my stainless steel copy of the Special Deluxe Boxed Limited Edition Directors Cut of Halo 2. I paid her the sixty dollars and strutted outside.
Seemingly out of nowhere, a teary-eyed, unshaven nerd in a black leather trenchcoat and a Dr. Seuss hat lunged at me.
"Dude!" he pleaded with me. "I'll give you $100 for your copy of Halo 2!"
"They're only sixty bucks inside," I informed him.
"They're sold out, unless you have one on reserve," he cried.
"I'll give you $200 for it," a myopic poindexter in a propeller beanie offered.
"250!" the first geek countered. "But you'll have to wait until my Mom comes to pick me up to get the money."
"Hold it, dudes," I said. "As an enlightened progressive, I couldn't possibly exploit your desperation and misery for my own personal profit. The capitalist system of 'supply and demand' leads not to the general well-being of society as a whole, but to vast wealth in the hands of the few. By all rights, this game should go to the one who NEEDS it most, not the one who'll pay the most."
"I'm 35 years old, unemployed and live with my mom," Dr. Seuss informed me. "I have no girlfriend and six cats, one of which died this morning. I need the testosterone-fueled violence of Halo 2 to give legitimacy to my pointless, wasted life."
"He's lying!" Propeller Beanie spat. "He's been out here all morning, buying copies cheap and selling them on eBay for $500 a pop! I need the game for my sister, who lost her leg in Vietnam and is suffering from chronic halitosis! She's been clinging to life for nine years waiting for Halo 2 to come out. With your copy, she can live again."
"LIAR!" Dr. Seuss screamed, and tackled Propeller Hat to the ground. Disgusted, I watched them wrestle in the grass like wild animals, biting and clawing over a silly video game as of it were a hunk of raw meat.
"Fools!" I said, breaking them apart. "Don't you know that competition is merely the manner and form in which the bourgeois controls the proletariat? Private property must be abolished and in its place must come the common utilization of all instruments of production and the distribution of all products according to common agreement -- in a word, what is called the communal ownership of goods."
The stared at me. A thin string of drool ran down Propeller Beanie's chin.
"In other words," I said. "You must share the game."
I placed my copy of the Special Deluxe Boxed Limited Edition Directors Cut of Halo 2 on the ground and walked away.
As I sat in my car, watching the two dweebs tear each other apart, there came a call on my cell phone. It was Myranda, with a "Y".
"I saw what you did out there," she cooed. "I like a man who appreciates Marx's vision of egalitarianism in its purest form, unlike those pathetic Lockeans who don't know how to please a woman. I'm off at five - would you like to meet at my place tonight for a ginseng colonic?"
"Wish I could," I replied, "but I'm afraid I must decline. As much as I'd like to check out your petite bourgeoisie, I'll be playing Grand Theft Auto; San Andreas on my Mom's hi-definition TV for the next few weeks."
I hung up and slowly drove home.
Another love lost? Perhaps. But as a wise man once said, "That activism requires sacrifice is a given; it is the notion of a meaningful political life WITHOUT sacrifice that is wildly unrealistic."
