Weekend Ritual

This article I am writing is about a typical weekend throughout my childhood. I grew up with 2 brothers and a sister. My younger brother and i were the closest, being less than 2 years apart. Almost every weekend our dad would take us to rent a movie or video game on a friday night. We either went to the "mom and pop" video store called Rainbow video or the grocery store Cannata's. We always wanted to go to Rainbow video because they had a much bigger selection, but we never complained. After we picked up a game and movie, usually horror, we would go to either McDonald's for supper or pick up pizza from Little Ceasar's or Pizza Hut.


I remember getting home and couldn't wait for my parents to leave so we could watch our movie that we picked out. They basically took us to rent games and movies so they could go on dates. As soon as they left my brother and I would grab our food and pop the movie in the VCR.


The movie I remember renting the most was Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter. I think every kid wanted to be like Tommy Jarvis in some way. He had an awesome computer and incredible masks that he made. To this day I am still a huge fan of Friday the 13th, all because of renting them as a kid.


After the movie we would go into our room and start on the video games. We would spend hours upon hours playing our Nintendo. We rented games like Rad Racer, Star Trek, Batman, and so on. We played well after midnight until we got too tired to play anymore.

On Saturday morning, we would usually have a sports game to go to. We played almost every sport each season, baseball, basketball, football, and soccer. After our games, our Dad would take us to the Time Saver gas station right outside our neighborhood.


There we would enjoy the little things in life that make us smile. My brother and I would each get an Icee. My choice would always be coke flavored.


There would also be an occasional comic book that I would pick up. I was always fascinated by the covers of the comic book which would give me reason to choose that lucky comic!


I was also introduced to my first protein bar. Tiger's milk bar! These protein bars were so delicious. Peanut butter in the middle of milk chocolate. Very yummy!


After the trip to the gas station, we would head back home. Another night of fast food or what not and watching USA up all night. Gilbert Godfried and cheesy horror movies go hand in hand. This is also one of the reasons we wanted to rent the Friday the 13th movies. We wanted to see the uncut versions!

Sunday morning rolls around and it was hard to wake us up for church! A late night of video games and USA, made it very difficult. Our family would go to church and on the way home we would either pick up Popeye's fried chicken or my mother would have had a roast in the crock pot. After lunch my dad would make one of us kids go with him to return the video game and movie. Sunday afternoons were pretty lazy. We would just lounge around watch nickelodeon or whatever else was on television, dreading going back to school the next day.

I think renting movies and video games was way cheaper than paying for a babysitter. We certainly didn't have any trouble taking care of ourselves. These little things from my childhood is probably the reason I am such a fan of movies today. It was a bigger part in my growing up than I realized. These fond memories are what has made me the person I am today. Some may say my parents were being selfish for wanting their date night, I say to them "Thank you!"