I’m having trouble dealing with the wait for the Nintendo Switch. No stores have it. Amazon hasn’t restocked yet. I sit here with browser windows full of stock trackers and resale sites, looking for a scalper offering a “reasonable” price for one and being incredibly let down. I could bite the bullet and just order, but I also have trouble dealing with the fact that the moment I order one from a scalper, new stock will show up immediately afterwards. That’s how it works. So I stare at Amazon waiting for a restock. Why do I even want a Switch so badly?

I think it was the holiday season of 1986 or so – I can’t remember exactly – but I can remember opening gifts and getting an NES, Mario/Duck Hunt, and The Legend of Zelda. And just as exciting, we had gotten a cabinet for the NES, emblazoned with the Nintendo logo on top and a big vinyl sticker of Mario. The cabinet was to keep ourselves tidy. Of course, tidy for my brother and I meant we’d shove everything (controllers, zapper, manuals) into the cabinet door, but at least it was off the floor.

The worst torture you could inflict on a kid in the 80’s was to get them a Nintendo and the next day leave home for a few days, while the object of our desire was basically still in the box (or in our case, sitting inside that awesome cabinet), beckoning us to play it. And that was what our family did, cramming us into a van for our yearly trip to Jersey to visit our paternal grandparents, uncle, and aunts. Finally, after a weekend of New Jersey, we were home and my love affair with Nintendo could finally start. For the next several years, we played NES every day.

Eventually we got Gameboys, and later a Sega Genesis, because… Sonic looked cool or something. I literally don’t remember why or when we got that Genesis. But I remember when we got Super Nintendo. It was for my brother’s birthday in, I think, 1992. By then, Zelda was out, and that’s all my brother could think about at the time. For me, all I could think about was “OH MAN! MARIO WORLD LOOKS SO GOOD!” Somehow, we talked my mother into getting us the two controller set with both games, and turns out I was right. Oh man, Mario World was so good.

A few years later, I bought myself a PlayStation 1. The N64 looked amazing, and I was dying for Mario 64 and Zelda… but the thing was that, at the time, the PS1 was cheaper, and I could play Mario 64 at a friend’s house. I didn’t play Zelda: Ocarina of time until I was (I think) a sophomore in high school. That’s when my friend Dave offered me an N64 he was looking to get rid of, which came with Mario 64 and Zelda. I was happy, and Dave got his money. And although at the time, my brother claimed to be over video games, he was on board for more Zelda.

GameCube, Wii, WiiU, I was on top of those. And now we’re back here, 2017, January or February when they had the big reveal of the Switch via YouTube livestream. I had one in my cart ready for pre-order, a grey one. But when they announced the two colors available, I had to go check out the other one…. Wait, were they sold out? Or just not set up for pre-orders yet? I went back and forth for a bit and decided to wait. And then all of the pre-orders for the grey ones were gone. And the neon ones were too. Apparently, those sold out so fast that I never even saw the pre-order go up.

So I could have pre-ordered a grey Switch, but I didn’t. And it kills me. I have Zelda: Breath of the Wild sitting on my desk while I draw Unlife for the day. I open the box once in a while, look at the tiny cart and close it. Clicking it in and out of the case, hoping that one of my sites will “DING!” and tell me there’s new stock. Then reading on Facebook that a friend was getting rid of an extra one, and UGGGGGGH, this was hours ago and he already found a home for it. Hopefully by the time this goes up I’ll have one. I want to roam the fields of Hyrule once more. I just have to be patient.

HOLY CRAP. Just as i was about to throw this blog up onto the site I LUCKED out and snagged one!

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Hey everyone,

With Chapter 7 reaching its conclusion, we’ll be taking a break from comics and blog updates for a couple of weeks. We’ll have some guest artists in the meantime, but we’ll be back with all new strips soon. See ya then!