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22. Pac-Man PTSD

  • Writer: Dylan Smith
    Dylan Smith
  • Nov 22, 2022
  • 2 min read
Day 22
Location 5: Krakow
Nov. 22, 2022

Note: All of Day 21 was spent on a train from Breclav to Krakow. Nothing eventful happened.

Every day after school from 2nd to 4th grade, I went to the North Shore Boys & Girls Club to do homework and play Club Penguin. Oh, they also had a really old Pac-Man machine.

It was there where I met Manny (who later became my basketball coach), a Pac-Man master. Manny trained me. "Blinky will follow you" he would drill into my head. "Blinky?" I asked. "That's the red one". This dude knew the names of the ghosts. That's the level he was on.

Eventually, I had mastered the craft: I followed the exact same pattern for every level and could consistently beat 5 levels in a row without dying.

Enter: my arch nemesis, Teddy. My good friend Sasha Fekula's brother, Teddy Fekula, also went to this Boys & Girls Club. Teddy wore grey sweat pants and dragged his feet as he walked. That's important because the combo of his outfit choice and lazy gait, paired with the dirty shag carpet of the club, meant he was a walking-static-electricity-generator.

One day, I'm cruisin' through level 9 of Pac-Man, about to get to Double-Flower (which would be my personal best). Things are looking good. Suddenly, I see an evil, gray shadowy orb in my periphery. The orb moseys on over to the machine, and stops. I yell "no Teddy no please don't, I swear–" ZAP! Teddy's outstretched single index finger kissed the machine and the whole thing went black, initiating a full reset. This happened on multiple occasions and it was kind of insane behavior from him, to be honest.

We've since squashed the beef and Teddy is a very cool guy. Truly, he's great. (But I still wouldn't let him anywhere near me when playing Pac-Man.)
Anyway, the point of all that is I spent over 3 hours in an old arcade in Krakow, Poland and it was sick. The worker was a ringer at every game including one game where you maneuvered a small metal ball around many holes that was seemingly impossible. I had an absolute blast.


Listen to the video below with audio for this legend's commentary. He makes it look easy. Don't let that fool you. I cannot begin to describe how incredibly difficult this game is. He also had every high score for every song on Expert on the Guitar Hero machine. My hero.



 
 
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