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Quite possibly my fondest early gaming memory.

I was somewhere in my early teens at the time and I was staying with my Mom for the summer. One day she took me to go rent a video game and I, very wisely (especially for my age), chose ChronoTrigger. I had always been a huge RPG fan and this game had been taunting me for too long. I was franticly churning through the insatiable game manual content on the trip back home. We arrived home and I lunged out of the vehicle before it even came to a complete stop. This game was beckoning me and I knew it would consume my complete attention for the entire rental duration. I popped the cartridge in, started a new game, and drifted off into a blissful ignorance of everything around me but the fantasy world I had just delved into.

The game was immaculate. The story, plot, gameplay, mechanics, fighting system, graphics, characters, you name it, it was all PERFECT. I was completely immersed...... but then there was this sound. A nagging sound. An annoyance in my ear that I could no longer shrug off by uttering the magical "just a few more minutes" incantation. The room door being thrown open jerked me out of my virtual utopia. It was my mom, and she wanted me to "get my ass in there and eat some dinner." "Not hungry," I replied. Dumbfounded, my mother ceased her relentless assault and walked out of the room. A sly smile came upon my face as I realized that this would be the first of many skipped meals in the name of video gaming.