McDonald’s breakfast, listening to sports talk radio, and playing Pokemon on GameBoy. What do those three things have in common? I’ve done all of them on every single road trip I can recall since I was five years old. Many people prepare for trips by doing things like gassing up or cleaning their car, but I prepare for long trips by charging my GameBoy Advance SP and fasting for a breakfast of sausage biscuits and Dr. Pepper. Growing up, nearly all of my long road trips were with my own family, but I’m much older now, and I’m breaking new ground this week - I’m going on a road trip with my girlfriend’s family.
Overall, I’m very excited for the trip. It will be great to get out of Ohio for the week and feel the sand between my toes - any change of scenery feels welcome right now. The drive is only eight hours, so it’s nothing crazy, but I’ve spent a lot of time this week being nervous about the trip. More specifically, I’m nervous about not achieving my road trip ritual. You see, I’m confident we will find a McDonald’s to stop at for breakfast, I’m confident that at worst I will listen to a sports podcast that will fill my need for sports talk radio, but I’ve felt a lot of angst about the last part of my sacred ritual: playing GameBoy.
In general, I have no shame about playing GameBoy. The notion that video games are childish is silly and unfounded. I don’t care if I’m 26 years old, Pokemon Emerald is one of the most fun games ever and I will gladly continue to play it for the rest of my life. But, at the same time, there’s an appearance I have to maintain with my girlfriend’s family. Despite my great relationship with them, there’s obviously still an element of wanting to impress them, and I’m not sure that spending eight consecutive hours in the car trying to grow my Swellow and beat the Elite Four is the best look.
As someone who has played the game, I don’t see it as something especially childish, but I could sort of understand her family finding it immature that I’m playing the same game I played 18 years ago while on a car ride with them. I’m old enough now that they probably want me to hear me bragging about my Roth IRA, not bragging about beating the Petalburg City gym without having a single one of my Pokemon faint. It’s really important that I look mature to my girlfriend’s family - I want them to feel like their daughter is dating a man, not just a boy. Heck, I’ve even been growing out my mustache leading up to this trip to try and distract them from my childlike facial features.
So, in the end, I’m faced with a dilemma this weekend: potentially sacrifice the respect of my wonderful lady’s family, or sacrifice the opportunity to take down Team Rocket and save the Hoenn region for the 85th time in my life. Ugh, 2020 is so hard. Much like when being forced to choose between starting with Torchic, Mudkip, and Treecko, I guess I’ll have to follow my heart.