In middle school, we had a half-hour free period at the end of the day. I remember it usually being a study hall/middle school fuckaround time, but at certain times during the year you could sign up for activities like pottery, hockey, and walking around.

One of the more well-respected teachers at the school offered an activity that supposedly encouraged critical thinking and would help expose us young people to the latest generation of technology.

Mr. Brown wanted a classroom full of pre-teens to watch him play Myst on a tiny television, some five years after the game’s release.

It speaks volumes about who I was back then that I thought signing up for Myst would be a good idea. Brown was theoretically supposed to entertain our suggestions, but it quickly became clear to all parties involved that no 12 year-old in the world would ever get anywhere in Myst, even if they, like me, owned the game and had used a strategy guide to beat it several years earlier.

Later that year Brown would throw me out of his class for making fun of the “rough and tumble” scene in the Disney Davy Crockett movie.

Even later that year, Brown would throw me out of his class for making fun of Andersonville.