I was very excited to receive the N64. It wasn’t ours to keep, being the unit from my parents’ office, but it was ours for the rest of Christmas break. With Mario 64 and Wave Race, my brother and I were pretty much set. I believe we were playing the latter, and we were so into it that if it weren’t so late and the volume so low we wouldn’t have heard the screams.
It was my mom’s voice and my brother instantly threw down his controller and ran for the stairs. I did the same, taking one moment (to my everlasting shame) to pause the game. At the top of the stairs we saw blood. Blood on the wall, blood tracked on the floor, blood on the cabinets, and over by the back door there was a nice big pool of, yes, blood. We ran up to my parents’ room where we found them examining our sheepdog Zipper, whose entire front was soaked in blood. He seemed to be in pretty good spirits, however.
We piled into the car and drove up to, if I remember correctly, an emergency vet on 45th north of the University District, and had him patched up. As it turned out, Zipper had a puncture wound on his muzzle consistent with a dog bite, and when we returned home we found the perpetrator, Cody, looking appropriately hangdog, if you’ll allow the expression. They had fought over a scrap of rawhide and Cody nipped Zipper on the nose. Zipper hadn’t seemed to care and walked around the house spurting blood everywhere, then dozed off for a bit and made that pool by the back door before going upstairs to scare the bejesus out of my mother.
My brother and I finished our race. But to this very day, whenever I play Wave Race or Mario 64, I can’t help but think about all that blood.
Anyway, happy holidays to everyone and thanks for reading our little blog. Love to all my family and friends (and readers).