Come one, come all; read the heart-string tugging story of an older brother protecting his younger brother’s game choices at a GameStop.
Normally when we think of GameStop, the corporate dark empire known to freedom-loving gamers everywhere (kidding!), it’s typically within the context of aggressive gaming-industry practices, or shoppers fighting “tooth & pepper spray” over the latest Black Friday deal. Not so this time, I can happily report for a change.
From Kristen Wolfe, a GameStop shift manager in northern Georgia, comes an uplifting recount from her personal Tumblr of a recent event which took place at her store involving a little boy who was being verbally abused, nastily, by his own father for choosing games that weren’t, in the father’s opinion, “manly enough.”
It seems that the unnamed 10-to-12 year old boy, accompanied by his much older brother, had sought out mostly games with female protagonists during his time at the store — he also picked up a purple game controller, which in this case, didn’t help matters at all — and when the boy’s father later found this out at the check-out counter, the parent got quite abrasive with his younger child, so says Wolfe.
Thankfully, as you will soon read, his older brother quickly stepped in to protect his young sibling from his fail-excuse of a Dad. Hooray! Like I say, Wolfe’s entire write-up about the occurrence is down-right soul lifting, albeit in the shadow of a terrible father (seriously, how could you treat your youngest as such), yet it’s still worth the full read, quite totally.
From Kristen Wolfe’s Tumblr:
Dear Customer who stuck up for his little brother,
you thought I didn’t really notice. But I did. I wanted to high-five you.
Yesterday I had a pair of brothers in my store. One was maybe between 15-17. He was a wrestler at the local high school. Kind of tall, stocky and handsome. He had a younger brother, who was maybe about 10-12 years old. The only way to describe him was scrawny, neat, and very clean for a boy his age. They were talking about finding a game for the younger one, and he was absolutely insisting it be one with a female character. I don’t know how many of y’all play games, but that isn’t exactly easy. Eventually, I helped the brothers pick a game called Mirror’s Edge. The youngest was pretty excited about the game, and then he specifically asked me.. “Do you have any girl color controllers?” I directed him to the only colored controllers we have which includes pink and purple ones. He grabbed the purple one, and informed me purple was his FAVORITE.
The boys had been taking awhile, so their father eventually comes in. He see’s the game, and the controller, and starts in on the youngest about how he needs to pick something different. Something more manly. Something with guns and fighting, and certainly not a purple controller. He tries to convince him to get the new Zombie game “Dead Island.” and the little boy just stands there repeating “Dad, this is what I want, ok?” Eventually it turns into a full blown argument complete with Dad threatening to whoop his son if he doesn’t choose different items.
That’s when big brother stepped in. He said to his Dad “It’s my money, it’s my gift to him, if it’s what he wants I’m getting it for him, and if your going to hit anyone for it, it’s going to be me.” Dad just gives his oldest son a strong stern stare down, and then leaves the store. Little brother is crying quietly, I walk over and ruffle his hair (yes this happened all in front of me.) I say “I’m a girl, and I like the color blue, and I like shooting games. There’s nothing wrong with what you like. Even if it’s different than what people think you should.” I smile, he smiles back (my heart melts!) Big brother then leans down, kisses little brother on the head, and says “Don’t worry dude.” They check out and leave, and all I can think is how awesome big brother is, how sweet little brother is, and how Dad ought to be ashamed for trying to make his son any other way.
*Sniff, sniff* Dang allergies… Anywho, if you need more sunny in your life — I would think you would, seeing how it’s the dead cold of winter — how about this cute Star Trek Enterprise plushie, or this delicious looking Minecraft cake that you can make yourself!
