Speak Geek to Me: BC, AD... MK?

Back in the day, people would mark time by the passage of the seasons. Later, they turned this passage of time into “years” and “months”. Some Roman emperor guys came along and tried to change how stuff was counted based on their own vanity, and generally pissed off some mathematicians. After that, since there was no way of being creative with math anymore, people started measuring time using different ways. It seems we can’t just leave it alone. Some people measure time based on animal or human evolution. Some people like to measure billions of years at a time based on planetary changes. Others measure by economic changes in a country, wars, or popes. Or wars and popes.

Remember the time of Pope Pius XII? Wasn’t too helpful during WWII. Died of hiccups. Yeah, that guy.

I discovered, however, that I have my own way of measuring time now. Eras are defined by releases of Nintendo’s Mario Kart games.

BMK (Before Mario Kart) was my high school years, a dark time when I only knew of Atari games – PacMan, Defender, and yes, E.T. – and arcade games. I struggled with my geek identity, attempting to be a pretty high school girl to attract the boys (FAIL) instead of just settling back into my comfy geek personality. In college, I saved up for a SNES and then came year 0 – CMKE (Common Mario Kart Era).

It marked my independence: leaving college, getting my first apartment, living with a guy who slept in chain mail (he was my roommate, not lover… ‘cause ow…), discovering Rolling Rock beer, and setting up my SNES to my roommate’s TV to drive around in a circle, collect coins and weapons and try to figure out why this was the best damn driving game I’d ever played. Was it the oversized Bowser in the ridiculously tiny Shriner’s-type car that made it fun? The ability to hop your car down the street like a pimp? (I found way too much amusement in the bouncing cars.) Or did it matter? These likely are mysteries into which one should not delve too deeply; one should just accept the glory of Super Mario Kart. One does not question miracles.

I began judging people by their reaction to Mario Kart. I didn’t judge on an economic level – as if they didn’t have/couldn’t afford Mario Kart, they were lesser beings. My apartment was open to all who would embrace Mario Kart in their hearts. I made some friends just based on the friendly challenge that my Luigi could beat their Donkey Kong Jr. The holy drink was Rolling Rock and the holy throne was my futon, where we played for hours. If someone did not accept Mario Kart, she was dead to me.

As many prophets do, I had a dark point in my life when I turned my face from my true calling. I purchased a Playstation instead of a GameCube or an N64, missing out on the next few Mario Kart releases. I was aware of them, aware of the passage of each era, being something I had to eventually go back to or else be lost. And when I got my DS and was able to go back to the holy charting of time passage, I took the opportunity and didn’t look back. Luckily Mario Kart accepted my devotion without question and I drove that hand-held whenever and wherever I could. But I missed the larger, TV console version of the game, I have to admit. So when the Wii version came out, that was the true return to the fold for me.

In the era before now, I was a young woman in college, living in an apartment with four people, enticing others to play Mario Kart with me, drinking the holy Rock of the Rolling, and experiencing true independence for the first time. And I can touch that feeling, touch that era, by playing the Mario Kart Wii. Back in the day of my personal independence, in the days of Clinton in the White House, in the days where CDs of “Best Music of the '90s” were already being sold on TV (with the decade barely begun) and the Internet still the realm of bearded Usenet fanatics. A more innocent time.

In the era after this one, I wonder what life will be like when Uber Mario Kart comes out for the Nintendo Virtual Reality Dome and I’ll think back to now, with the dark days of war, Bush in the White House, unbelievable gas prices, and unemployment, but also the bright spots of my personal life, my family, friends, and teaching my daughter the fine points of Mario Kart Wii.

Some historians measure history by plain old years. Me, I think I’m going to measure it by Mario Kart. I’m a Nintendo loyalist right now, and can’t see missing another release. So as long as they keep releasing the games, I’ll keep marking my life by little red shells and banana peels.



Mur Lafferty is a writer and podcaster from Durham, NC. She is host of the award-winning podcast I Should Be Writing and producer and writer behind the zombie audio drama The Takeover. Her first novel, Playing For Keeps, is scheduled for release in August from Swarm Press. She is not a mythical creature.

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