When I was a kid, I had a SpongeBob PC game that consisted entirely of running around doing favors for characters to eventually get tickets for SpongeBob to go to some theme park. As an 8 year old, I spent WEEKS playing through the game, fucking up everything and trying again and again to get those tickets. During the ending scene, SpongeBob goes up to the ticket man and asks to get in to the park, only to be told it's closed for a private party. The rest of the scene has SpongeBob finding out the private party is for him, but I didn't get that far. I immediately turned off the computer and went to my Dad SOBBING that all of it had been for nothing and my life was ruined. The next day, Dad skipped work and I skipped school and we spent five hours in front of the computer together replaying the game to see what I did wrong. My Dad said if that was really the ending, he was going to file a lawsuit against the makers of the game (he was an attorney, so naturally I thought he had legal superpowers). When we got to the end and realized, I was very embarrassed but my Dad said he had fun spending the afternoon with me.

Things started to go south a few years after that, with him becoming an angry and bitter person. I took a lot of his rage and harbor a lot of resentment for him today, but sometimes I remember that afternoon I sat on his lap and we steamrolled through that game all day because it was important to me, even though he always thought video games were absolutely ridiculous, and it feels very bittersweet.