I was in Best Buy today to pick up some more external storage.  As is always the case, I have to traverse all the way to the back of the store to get the only item I was in there to acquire.  This tends to annoy me, but has the side benefit of giving me lots of opportunities to make other observations.  One that stuck out on this trip occurred as I was passing by the Rock Band display.  For the 1% of the population that might not be aware of what this is, think of it as a console game (Xbox 360, PS2/3 etc.) that allows the players to simulate being a musician or singer through a plastic controller that at least looks like an instrument – the guitar plays nothing like a real guitar, but tries to emulate fretting one string while strumming with the other hand – the drums are a little more realistic in the sense you have a kick pedal and four contact pads.  Walking slowly past the display, I noticed a guy excitedly talking to his wife (assumed) about the game and how fun it looked.  His eyes were as wide as Christmas day as he tried to explain all the things you could do with it.  His enthusiasm reminded me of the Red Rider BB gun plea from Ralphie.  Just before I went beyond earshot, I heard her say “Well, ask him” in a much less enthusiastic voice.   I pondered that a few more paces while finally reaching the storage isle. 

My assumption was he wanted to ask the clerk something but it turns out I was wrong about that.  I actually took about 20 minutes trying to decide how many gigs of storage to buy – do I go with the Terabyte for convenience and accept the risk of losing a greater amount of data, or do I go with twin 500Gs and cut the loss risk in half…. My IT career has trained me to assume the worst on anything computer related so I went with the 500s… but I have strayed from topic.. Retracing my steps back to the front, I once again passed the display and sure enough they were still there, but this time their child (probably 10-11 or so) was with them.  The Dad tried to keep his excitement in check as he asked if he “would like to get Rock Band”.   While he reached down to pick up the box in anticipation of the answer, the kid replied with a firm “No”.  In that split second, I saw the man go from real excitement to complete devastation – his face lost color, the eyes drooped and the shoulders shrugged under the now heavy weight of the box.   To be honest, I haven’t seen a high to low moment like that in awhile.  Clearly the excitement was based on the fun he was going to have, but he needed the child’s assistance to make that happen.   It actually made me wonder back on the times my Dad may have needed an assist and I failed to deliver.

The worst part of it all…. I know exactly how much enjoyment he is missing out on since (sad to say) I am completely addicted to the Rock Band drums.