My parents sent me to this day camp. I was eleven and hated it. I know. Poor me, having to go to summer camp when people are eating each other in New Jersey.
I didn't get along with the the kids there. That stemmed from an incident when a bunch of them wanted to beat me up, and I summoned my extra-retard strength to defeat them.
Seriously. I power-bombed a dude for making fun of Magic: The Gathering
I started bringing my Magic cards and Inquest magazine with me to camp. The mouth breathers would go and play grab ass, I would hang back and play with the few kids who didn't suck.
One day, an assistant counselor noticed us playing on the basketball court. Instead of kicking us off, he sat down and pulled out his deck. I want to point out, if I had said dick instead of deck, that would have been pretty creepy, huh? Would have taken things in a whole other direction ...
I can't remember the cards he played with. I don't even remember his name, but the guy taught me a lot. For example, I went from playing with every card I owned to playing with sixty cards and a Sideboard. A Sideboard!
It was the best time I had playing the game.
And as you might have guessed, it was later ruined. My group's counselor, who had turned a blind eye to my Magic monkey shines, got tired of the mouth breathers complaining about the few of us playing the game.
My parents were wasting money on this camp and were not pleased with how I was using my time. Somewhere between, "I'm not spending $3,000 for you to sit around and play Magic" and "Fuck you. I want to set that place on fire," I was grounded and couldn't bring my cards with me anymore.
I kept playing through Middle School, even when the principal took my Demonic Tutor and banned the game because he thought it was Satanic.
What made me stop were the kids I was playing with. In high school, I realized they were assholes. They were using me for cards and once talked my Dad into driving them to a tournament at Neutral Ground in NYC, making fun of me the whole way.
Great guys. I wish I could stuff them in a rocket and fire it at North Korea. Actually, the same can be said for most people I went to high school with.
So, I stopped playing after Exodus and used my money on porn instead.
Magic was never as fun as it was that summer. I hope getting back into the game and working towards a Pro Tour berth in 2012 will create new, better memories.
That possibility? It's enough to make me run and buy cards from CoolStuffInc.com. Ok. That was a cheap plug, but you get the idea. I'm amped.
That's my magic history. It's the first and only time I will mention it in this column. Which reminds me, If you have a magic memory you want to share, you could win a trip to Pro Tour San Juan through Wizards.
Next time: We talk Zen Masters and inappropriate things starting with the letter Q.