There are all kinds of fancy-schmancy video games out there now. Cubes and boxes and you-name-it. All shapes, all sizes, all aspects of the geometric world. We have most of them down in the family room where there is el mucho space and el mundo toys and no kids to appreciate them any more.

Oh wait. I forgot. There is one kid down there a lot. Hub practically lives down there with various and sundry video game machines and vicious violent games wherein he saves the universe on a regular basis in between grading calculus exams and writing programs for electronics.

Zappa is down there many weekends, but the universe’s well-being is mostly in Hub’s hands. So, we’re safe.

But do you remember, that before there were Cubes, and before there were Boxes, there was simply Nintendo?

And before gamers strived to save the universe, we simply tried to help Mario and Luigi find their way through various worlds and mazes and levels, fighting fire-breathing dragons at the end of every level, and rescuing the Princess at the very end?

You all know me as Mamacita, not-so-gracefully-aging sentimental empty-nester who rants about things and gets Gary all upset. But before I was Mamacita, I was the Coolest Mom in the World, because I could RESCUE THAT PRINCESS in less than ten minutes, baby. Go ahead and time me; I could do it.

The gang of little fifth grade boys at WalMart knew me as their Queen, because I could stand there surrounded by adoring hordes of smelly grade-school kids and teach them how to get through the MAZE LEVEL.

Yes. By day I taught prepositional phrases and point of view, but by night. . . . ah, by night, I showed most of this county’s Boy’s Club members how to rescue the Princess, right there in WalMart.

I brought a Nintendo set to school and let those who had completed all their week’s homework and passed all their week’s tests (in ALL classes, mister!) play Super Mario Brothers all through study hall on Fridays. They had to show me their completed, graded assignments, I added their names to the Elite Gamers list, and off we went, jumping on toadstools and slamming into blocks and letting the coins add up. The slackers had to sit there and watch, and do their accumulated homework assignments.

Every kid who had me for study hall could rescue the Princess. All my study hall kids also passed all their classes, once they figured out what they could do if they did. No other teacher had a pass record like mine. I was proud of that.

Now some of you will criticize me for bringing that Nintendo and that one little game to school. Go ahead. But I bet it was your kid who was proudest of himself for finally passing Basic Math and earning the right to a session at the Nintendo.

I was the Nintendo Queen. I wore that crown proudly.

These newer game sets, though, I don’t like them. I don’t like them at all. The games are too bloody. They’re too lifelike. I don’t like taking a jab at something that’s three-dimensional. I prefer full control over flat two-dimensional cartoon characters who look like train engineers, fight dragons, and rescue the princess even though in real life she’d never have either of them.

Yes, I’m old now, but back in the day, I was the Nintendo Queen. Ask anybody.