Video Games: Pitfall!

Summer 1983. Sitting in the floor of my bedroom, I pop the cartridge of Pitfall! into the Coleco Gemini. 8-bit graphics on a 13-inch B&W TV. The back of the Pitfall! box states that if you score more than 20,000 points you can send a photo in of your score and become part of the Pitfall Harry's explorer club. 20,000 points in under 20 minutes should be easy, right? Two hours later, the screen shows a score of 20,150. Pause. Game over. Grandma can I borrow your Polaroid? What ever for? I need to get a picture of my high score so I can get a Pitfall! T-shirt...no...a Pitfall! patch! So many vines. So many scorpions avoided. Do parents of 1983 know how hard it is to jump from crocodile to crocodile while avoiding them from snapping my legs off? Gold bar. Silver Bar. Platinum Bar. And bag of money. I always thought it odd that a bag of money lay in the jungle. Yet, Harry would swing and pick it up. Rolling logs. Jump. If you get hit, Harry is thrown to his knees and proceeds to make the sound of flatulence. Da da-da dum dummmmmm, as I fall into the disappearing and reappearing tar pit. It was the highest I ever scored. The first photo, the screen is blurry. Will ActiVision even know that's a 20,150 score? Better take another. The print slides out of the camera. Wait. Wait. Fan the picture. Fan. The print is dry yet the screen of the TV has a curvy line thing through the score. Third picture will be the charm. Sure enough. Its close enough. Mailed. I waited six to eight weeks. I gave it another six to eight weeks and nothing. I never got that t-shirt...or patch. Yes, I did break 20K in Pitfall! and I'm damn proud of it. I click the off button and that score fades to black.