I told you this would be underwhelming or Why God Hates Me (according to Mark )
Sometime in the fall or early winter of 1983 Mark and I were at Happy Joe's Pizza playing video games. We spent a lot of time up there wasting many quarters in Mark's attempt to master the game .Joust. A task may I say he accomplished with great success. Happy Joe's was the local arcade place at the time. It was run by a man named Al Hill. Al was the Mayor of Kewanee at the time. He looked liked one of those burgermiesters you'd see rallying the village locals to go burn down Dr. Frankenstein's castle in one of those old movies. (this has nothing to do with the story but I needed to say it anyway.)
Since we were two young men straight out of high school with nothing else to do we played video games untill the place closed. We walked out into the cold night to get into my car. (It was my first car. A 1978 tan Ford Thunderbird. If anyone has one laying around please buy it and ship it too me.) We got into the car and I put my key in the ignition. I turned it to start the car.
Nothing. Just a brief grinding noise. I tried it again. Nothing. Mark I'm sure had something funny to say. I began to get upset. I tried it again .
Still nothing.
I'm not sure how many times I tried it but my battery soon began to run down. I knew I was not going to have many more tries.
So being a young man with a melodramatic flair I opened my door stepped outside and shouted something like, " Here's my last quarter God! I give it to you and promise to never play another video game as long as I live if only you start my car!"
I threw the quarter with all my might. It landed somewhere on the roof of the Happy Joe building. I got back into my car and turned the key.
Again the long grinding noise. It slowly faded away as my battery drained down. Finally it stopped. I made a loud disgusted yell and let go of the key.
Suddenly my car started to life, with full power.
"Wow", I said.
"You know," Mark said, " He's going to hold you to that."
I looked at Mark confused. "Who?"
"God. You promised him."
"Oh Yeah."
I kept the promise until my next day at the local community college where I ended up playing Star Castle in between classes.
Mark has since then blamed my whole life on that promise.

and now Mark's view of that dreadful night. As told by Mark himself. (he originally posted this in the comments section but I thought it worth while for everyone to read.)


We were trying to start that car for at least a half hour or so, and that battery was completely drained. The engine was groaning the way engines do, trying to start, but there was not even a hint of a sputter, nothing to make us think it was actually catching. We were primarily just draining the battery.
We knew that the last attempt was our last attempt, that there wasn't enough juice to try again. Tom held the key until we thought it couldn't even make any noise again, then let go. Then, and you'll notice this is after Tom let go of the key and the battery was utterly drained, the car roared to life.
Obviously, God took pity on Tom and answered his plea. If we weren't so amazed and distracted by this event, I'm sure we would have seen a hand descend from the heavens to pick up the quarter that Tom sacrificed, and heard God say "Deal." (I'm convinced that's why most prayers aren't answered. There's no sacrifice to God).
Tom, momentarily overwhelmed, pretty quickly became underwhelmed when faced with the temptation of an actual video game.
You would think that God would forgive Tom. However, Tom is unrepentent and in fact tends to rub it in God's face by buying new video game consoles soon after they come out, and also stocking up on games for his 2 PC's.
So, for the time being, Tom fails to keep up his end of the bargain, and God continues to punish him for it. Some day Tom will repent and give all his video games to a worthy cause (me) and God will forgive and stop punishing Tom.

What you have to do is read this very carefully and you will see the truth. Mark and GOD are shaking me down. GOD apparently wants more quarters, and Mark wants my Video Games. I imagine GOD stopping by Mark's house wearing a trench coat and hat trying not to act like he's the SURPREME DIETY. They go to Mark's computer room and plot out my next several months of torture.
You see what I think happened that night is that after Mark and I left GOD went in to Happy Joe's and played a video game (Most likely Dig Dug) and got hooked on it. So he's been shaking me down ever since for more quarters.
But I will not yield. I will not be brought to me knees. I mean who does he think he is?
Mark will continue to get my old video game systems, AFTER I get the new video game systems, and GOD will get no more quarters from me.
I mean honestly, whats the worst he could do to me?