Friday afternoon, shortly after finishing a lunch with Maxim and ClackyJ, GameStop made the cell phone in my pocket vibrate. While in some situations this might be an exciting prospect in itself, the cell phone was quickly answered in this case. “I have good news for you,” said the voice on the other end of the phone. Well aware that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints does not have my phone number, I knew exactly what this sentence meant. My long awaited Xbox 360 had finally found its way into my local GameStop.

Arriving at GameStop, I was greeted by a fun scene. The store was packed with last minute shoppers. The GameStop clerks knew exactly which GBA game would make the children of these procrastinators love them more. That wasn’t the point of my trip though. And I didn’t have any children…that I knew of! Hahaha, funny.

The Xbox 360 corner of GameStop was my first stop. Stop at GameStop. Hmmm, I don’t like that sentence at all. Anyway, I wandered over to see which, if any, Xbox 360 games GameStop had used.

Sitting there on the shelf was a used copy of Perfect Dark Zero. Well hell, I pre-ordered this. Might as well pick up a used copy for cheaper.

What else was on the shelf? Oooo, Condemned: Criminal Origins was used too. I was interested in that game. Yowza, but not for $54.99 used. I don’t cotton to these $60 price tags on Xbox 360 games. And $54.99 for a used game is stupid. I’ll leave you on the shelf for some parent looking to buy the love of their spawn.

It was now time to make my way to the counter and redeem my much anticipated Xbox 360. I wanted to play it really smoothly though, like I wasn’t falling over myself excited about picking up the Xbox 360. So I walked up to the counter, flashed the used copy of Perfect Dark Zero, and said “I need something to go with this.”

After utterly confusing the clerk for two minutes as he looked through the game reservation list, it was cleared up that I was there to pick up my Xbox 360. Yeah, smooth. “Oh, that’s all done by the manager,” said the clerk.

So off I went to the next line, to wait for the manager as he talked to someone who’s Xbox 360 order had also arrived. From what I heard, the person on the phone wasn’t sure what games to get. They must not have been obsessively checking every website for information over the past 33 days like me.

Soon enough, I was at the head of the line. After quickly explaining why I had come, without trying to be cute this time, the manager went into the locked cage in the GameStop back room and retrieved my Xbox 360. There it was, as simple as that. After waiting for 4 months, I now had a heavier than expected box that contained an Xbox 360.

Following the pickup, I went back to my workplace. Would I explode from anticipation before the workday was over? Stay tuned for the continuing saga.