Back in my prime Kijiji collecting years from 2010-2012, before kids and even before my girlfriend (now wife) lived with me. I really didn’t know how good I had it. Deals were everywhere literally all the time. So having a girlfriend that was very busy with College, I was free to roam around the city, chasing video games with next to no commitments. Oh the glory years! So I often would go after deals regardless of how small or non-epic they were. It was just fun to do. This one in particular was for a few Sega Master System games which included Double Dragon. Playing DD with a good friend as kids, it was the one I wanted the most from this lot. I contacted the guy over email, we did the regular song and I headed out.

When I arrived, I noticed right away that it was an old rundown apartment. I circled the block looking for a place to briefly park, but it should have been no surprise that there was no parking anywhere. This was the congested inner city which was chaotic during this time of day to say the least. So with no other options, I parked in a tow away zone and raced to the apartment’s front door assuming the deal would take only seconds. What happened next (which would become all too common) pisses me off beyond belief and really brings my piss to a boil. I ring the door buzzard and this middle aged, bald, skinny dude with John Lennon glasses comes flying down the stairs and opens the door at Mach-1. I stand there staring at him in disbelief.... NO GAMES IN HAND.... Like what? Why not bring them with you and do the deal in the doorway? It’s not like there was a 100 games to carry down… just 4! Then he instructs me to follow him up the stairs, which were in fact, 5 flights of stairs to be exact. This was the exact thing I did not want to do, burn up more precious time. Every second further risking my truck getting ticketed or even worse, towed away.

The air was thick and musty due to no air flow or air conditioning. It felt like Stairway Level in NES Ghostbusters trudging up those stairs. The place was just plain old dirty and I didn’t like it. We get to his apartment door, he unlocks it and goes in. Just before I step in, he spins around and looks me dead in the eyes and says "leave your shoes on" (it is common for shoes to be removed when you walk in someone’s house in Canada). So, I leave my shoes on and he leads me into the kitchen. This was the barest apartment I have ever seen in my life. The kitchen counters we completely empty. The only thing I could see was a tiny beat–up couch with a laptop on it off in the corner of the “living room”, I assume the same laptop we made the deal on.  He leads me through the kitchen to the other side where a table without any chairs stood. On this kitchen table and all around it in a 10 foot half circle were empty DVD cases... Like a thousands of them. DVD cases stacked from the floor up to the table and then from the table top to the ceiling. It was like a massive plastic monument paying homage to the DVD gods. The 4 games where on a smaller stack off DVD’s at the very edge of this table. I paid the $10 for the games with no words said, reluctantly turned my back to him and got the hell out of there. Thankfully my truck was there when I got back without any tickets.
 

Thinking back, it was quite an impressive stack of DVD cases.