Let me regale you with an embarrassing moment of mine.

Yes, there are still plenty that I have not yet mentioned in my nearly 19 years of daily blogging.

Sad, huh?

Anyway.

The year was 2000. We had just transitioned into a new millennium. The youngest Gen Z-ers were in preschool. Beanie Babies were beginning to lose the stranglehold they had on the collectible toy market. I was in sixth grade. Malls were still an important part of life and were, arguably, thriving.

Also, the first version of The Sims was released.

I didn’t buy The Sims right when it came out because I didn’t know about it. But a few years later, I had my own laptop, a consistent “allowance” (I put it in quotes because I never actually did anything to earn it, haha) from my dad, and knowledge of this wonderful simulation game that sounded like it was right up my alley.

We also had a Toys ‘R’ Us in the Palouse Mall and I knew that this store carried The Sims. I want to say that the game cost something like $50 (I could be totally wrong about this, though), but I neeeeeeded it so I had to save up some allowance over several weeks before having enough to buy it.

If you think I’m shy and socially awkward now, you should have seen me as a preteen. I got nervous talking to anyone about anything, so imagine how anxiety-producing a monetary transaction was.

But I neeeeeeded The Sims, so one Saturday morning, I worked up the courage to go into Toys ‘R’ Us, grab a copy of the game, and march up to the cashier to pay for it. From the moment I walked into the store, my brain was like get this over with get this over with get this over with, so all I wanted to do was pay and flee. But before I could do so, the cashier took a quick look at the game I’d put on the counter and said, “you know this is the Mac version, right?”

Nope.

Nope, I did not know that.

I hadn’t even thought about that. Again, get this over with get this over with get this over with. I just grabbed the first copy of the game I saw so that I could get out of a situation that, according to my 12-year-old brain, was as life-threatening as getting chased by a polar bear.

But because my 12-year-old brain thought this situation was as life-threatening as getting chased by a polar bear, I still just wanted to get this over with get this over with get this over with. So I just nodded, paid for the game, and fled.

And as you can probably guess, I did not want the Mac version. I had a PC. I needed the PC version. But I was too embarrassed and afraid to be like “oh, oops, I’ll grab the correct copy!” and instead just ended up spending $50 on a VERSION OF THE GAME THAT I COULDN’T EVEN PLAY.

I can’t even be mad at Baby Claudia, though, because Current Claudia would probably still do the same thing.

But yeah. I kept the $50 Mac version (I think I ended up giving it to one of my friends at some point) and lived in my humiliation for several more weeks before I was able to save up enough money to BUY THE GAME AGAIN. I also had to wait until that same cashier wasn’t working so that I could avoid ultimate humiliation.

BEING SHY SURE HAS ITS PERKS, DOESN’T IT