The Girl and Monkey Boy got an Xbox for Christmas along with a stack of not-new-games, including Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and 3, and Sonic and Knuckles. I used to play those games, on the Sega 64 B and I got as a wedding present from one of B’s groomsmen. Best wedding present ever. We were young and in love and kinda poor. I cannot tell you how many hours we logged playing Sonic the Hedgehog.

This morning Monkey Boy announced that he was going to complete the entire game of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and beat the big, bad boss at the end, “I’m going to do it in one hour, maybe two.”

“Oh really?”

“Yeah. Do you think I can?”

“Maybe, but when I did it, it took me a long time and a lot of extra lives. Of course, we didn’t have YouTube back then, so I couldn’t just watch someone else play. I had to figure it out myself. Some of those levels are really hard. And, the boss level is really hard.”

Then Monkey Boy went on to describe how to play the boss level, something he watched on YouTube. Then he finished with, “Right, Momma? That’s how you win the boss fight?”

“I remember a lot about the game, especially levels one and two, and how to get all the rings and extra lives and how to get a perfect score. I also remember how to get all the Chaos Emeralds. But I do not remember all the details of the boss fight. It might come back to me if I played. I beat the boss almost 24 years ago. That’s a long time.”

“Momma, you’re old. I forgive you if you don’t remember how to win.”

UPDATE: Monkey Boy and The Girl played for a little while and then moved onto something else. The boss fight will have to wait for another day.