Mom got me a Game Boy Advance for Christmas. I didn’t ask for anything this year, so this awesome gift really blew me out of the water. I really like the GBA as a platform because there are so many games for it that have been ported over from the Super Nintendo. Two games in particular that I’m incredibly excited about are Super Mario World and The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past.

The first game I went to buy was Zelda since it really is my favorite game of all time. (I have beaten the game at least 2 times a year since I got it in for SNES in 1994.) The hunt for the GBA version of Zelda proved to be as elusive as the hunt for the Triforce itself. I started off going to the Wal-Mart here in Hazard. Not a trace of the tiny cartidge, even though I had seen one there not more than two days before Christmas. In an effort to find it, Mom, Dad, and I loaded up and went to the Super Wal-Mart in London. Again, no dice. We proceeded to the Big-K. Nada. On the way back, we passed by Manchester, which has the smallest, most decrepit Wal-Mart I have ever been to. Mom suggested we try there.

I merely laughed but Dad pulled off the exit anyway. I went in, navigating through the puny store to its proportionally matched electronics section. In the GBA case, there lay eight copies of that which I sought. Just as in the game, sometimes the most unlikely place will hold the key to a query.