Innocent, I Tell Ya

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Category: Blog

Do violent video games cause violence? You decide.

I read a story today about a lawyer who is offering to represent a 15 year-old Florida boy charged with savagely killing his female friend. The lawyer believes his client was compelled by violent video games to do what he did, and is therefore innocent of any crime.

Having read this, I want to come forward and address my involvement in a case long since cold.

When I was 15, I went on a trip to Canada, where I spent time living with a family of professional barrel jumpers. These were sweet, caring folk whose ability on skates rivals that of Olympic athletes.

Each day, they'd bring me out to the frozen lake out back to teach me the art of jumping barrels. They could not have done more to make me welcome and happy.

Then it happened.

After jumping practice and our usual snack of Nutella, Wheat Thins and V-8, the rest of the group retired to the family room to watch Don Cherry. I offered to clean up that day, feeling it was the least I could do for their hospitality.

Whilst pushing the barrels back to their holding bins, I spotted a sledgehammer hanging from a tree. I have no idea why it was hanging from the tree.

At first I didn't pay it any mind, but suddenly I had the urge to grab hammer. I wasn't sure why, but then the music began to fill my head:

Ding-da-dong-da-dong-da-dong, badadeedledeedledee! Dum-dum da-dadda-dum-dm da-dadda-dum-dum...

Influenced by my years of video game playing and empowered by the sudden change in the soundtrack, I snatched the sledgehammer with the might of Thor.

I'm a little fuzzy about what happened next, but when I came to, all of the barrels were smashed to bits. I even found some of them burnt to a crisp, as though someone had put the barrels in a furnace before I smashed them.

My adopted family came running outside to find the horror of their entire barrel supply destroyed. Needless to say, I was asked to leave, despite my protestations of innocence.

You see, it wasn't my fault that those barrels got smashed, even if it was technically my arms swinging the sledgehammer.

I blame Taito, Nintendo, Coleco, Atari, and all other makers of a version of Donkey-Kong.

Were it not for them, would I have ever considered smashing all of those barrels? I think not.

Moreover, if it were not for Donkey-Kong, would I still to this day prefer wearing red overalls?

And would I still be tormented by the fact that my one true love was stolen by a giant ape named after another animal, never to be permanently rescued?

I will get that monkey. I swear to it!