Family Storytime – Page 2 – KC J. Hutchins' Blog- A Journal of a Creative Creature

Those who didn’t read my other story about my cousin’s title might not understand what this means. If you want the explanation, click here (https://kcjhutchins.com/2023/06/13/video-game-storytime-my-cousins-title/). Otherwise, I’m continuing on. So, I grew up playing video games with my younger brother. This, of course, meant we played a lot of co-op games since competitions would occasionally end badly. For those who’ve never played a game with someone, you might find people think very differently from you. For instance, boulders are blocking your path and your thought is to blow them up to clear the path. However, your partner thinks to jump over the rocks instead. When he was a kid, he’d always head straight to the treasure… often at my expense. There would be hordes of enemies after us, but the glitter of gold would pull him away… leaving me with the enemies.
Barely scraping by, I’d annoyingly yell for him to come back… which he’d often respond with, “We need the treasure.”
I’d remind him by saying, “We could grab it afterwards. You know once the enemies aren’t trying to kill us?”
“Oh, I’ll remember next time.” He’d always say.
While I was in high school, we played this dragon game (The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon) where we were linked. Try to pull too far away and you’d pull your partner. Surrounded, my brother went straight for the treasure. I, unable to stand my ground or really fight, soon fainted and this causes us both to lose.
He asks, “What the heck? How did you die?”
Which I responded, “I was a victim of greed.”
He laughed realizing what happened at which I joined in the revelry. However, it gets worse. Since he’d left me to fight on my own so often, I was a considerable high level… while he wasn’t. We ended up playing the stupid siege level sooooo many times due to this little hiccup. But, oh no, this isn’t what gave him his title. After all, this was too soon before the idea came to my head.

Fast forward to around myself starting college. My brother convinced me to play this Zelda game where we fight on a battlefield (I don’t remember the name). At one point in the game, you need to face three boss fighters at once. Now, they are quite far from one another at first… so you could take them down one at a time. I mean the only way they’d come together is if you lured them over. No one in the right mind would do this… right? Can you tell what happened? That’s correct… my brother purposedly lured them over to me as he went to swipe the treasures. An act of betrayal while he laughed and watched me take these down by myself. Which was working… until a boss noticed and rolled after him. The fight was much easier at that point.
When it was all over and done, I turned to him and exclaimed, “You are officially known as the Treasure Seeker, and I will remember that!”
We both were laughing our butts off from the whole thing. To this day, he continues to hunt for the treasure to stay true to his title.

I’d say I was in upper elementary/middle school when our family decided to go to Niagara Falls for vacation. It was my first time leaving the country, so I was very excited. (Yes, it wasn’t far from the US, but I was a kid.) In I was packed into a van with my parents, grandparents, and my brother. We spent hours in the car… most of the time watching the same particular movie over and over on our little portable DVD player. Oh, it was tempting to throw it out the window once or twice, but sleep was the healthier option. Somehow my family was allowed entry into Canada. Now, I could go on and on about the trip as a whole, but I’d like to focus on one event. See, there’s this tower which overlooks over the city and Niagara Falls. One gets to the top of it by taking an outdoor facing elevator. This allows their customers to enjoy the views while ascending to their destination… unless they’re afraid of heights. It so happened three of the adults in our group possessed this fear. Naturally as the good-natured children my brother and I were, we didn’t dare tease or nudge them towards the window. That would be so mean and rude… did you detect the sarcasm?
Anyways, we arrive to the top to find a somewhat fancy restaurant. The uniqueness of this place was the floor rotated to give the tables a view of the city. Got that? Only the floor moves. A long window wrapped along the outside of the dining room with a small ledge. When you go to sit down, they adamantly say not to lean or put anything on it since it stays stationary. Naturally, they put the kids near the window where we proceeded to forget this detail. An elbow slip there and a squeak here were to be expected. However, my brain forgot these moments and I placed my glasses on the ledge. As a couple of minutes passed, I realized my folly and chased after the spectacles. Apologizing to a very nice table who handed it to me. Daggers were glared at me from the servers who gave the warning. You’d think this would be the cream of the crop for embarrassment, right? Wrong. For you see my brother had to unintentionally top it. While calming down from the incident and enjoying my meal, I gazed out to see the falls. Smiling at how enjoyable it was to myself. It seems my brother shared the same thought. I know this because he was so distracted by the fantastic sights that he ended up on my lap. I giggled at first until I realized he was dragging me with him. Somewhat trapping both of us between the window and the seat. We were only freed when our parents helped. They lifted up my brother so I could pull myself out. I’m pretty sure through all these antics every eye was on us. As an adult, I’m surprised we weren’t asked to leave, or my family wasn’t too embarrassed to do so themselves. All I remember was a lot of laughing as we rotated round and round.

Tag: Family Storytime

Family Storytime: My Brother’s Title

Family Storytime: Rotation