I don’t think that too many people can say they own a Nintendo Powerplay Saturday Champion necklace. It’s made of aluminum and has a bunch of shiny, plastic jewels embedded in it. Even though it feels solid in your hand, this accessory isn’t worth anything close to the rapper chains it’s modeled after. To me, however, its true value comes from the story behind it.

I won this piece of Nintendo jewelry through a contest at a local GameStop back in 2006. I read online about occasional promotions where customers could compete against each other by playing various DS games for prizes. I decided to try my luck at the one for New Super Mario Bros. I fancied myself a pretty solid platformer player and figured I’d have a decent shot to win the advertised Nintendo chain or at least the runner-up T-shirt.

The morning of the contest, I dragged my friend Misha with me to the Capitola Mall (in a suburb just outside of Santa Cruz, Calif.). I figured that less people were likely to show up to that particular store at 11 a.m. on a weekend than the other, more accessible GameStop just across the street in a little shopping strip.

Sure enough, when I got there about 15 minutes before the scheduled competition time, the place was a bit empty. I sized up a couple of kids running around, thinking, “Are those pipsqueaks here to play? I can take them, easily….”  But they weren’t there for New Super Mario Bros. In fact, no one who knew about the contest besides me ever did show up, so the employees declared me the winner by default. They then tried to give me the runner-up T-shirt as my prize, most likely hoping that I knew nothing of the first-place chain. I was worried that they just didn’t have it for whatever reason, but I asked about the necklace anyway. With a reluctant, “oh yeah,” they brought it out for me and handed over the shirt as well.

For the next few years, the remainder of my collegiate career, I’d proudly equip my Nintendo Powerplay Saturdays Champion bling before setting out to any parties or bar nights. Tipsy students would usually brush it off at first glance. After having them read what the text said, though, most of them would give me some geek cred. The amount would vary based on how convincingly I described my legendary skill.

Fast forward to today. I’ve been graduated for a few years and have moved back home to Los Angeles, Calif. I don’t find myself at too many parties or bars these days, let alone ones where the folks would appreciate my nerdy necklace. With last week’s LeetUp, however, I had just the perfect occasion to bust it out once again. Unfortunately, I don’t think that very many people in the dimly lit Club Nokia could really read what it said, anyway, but that’s OK. Based off of who hears the story, I either come off as kind of cool or pretty dorky…usually the latter.  

Thankfully, I don’t care much about either of those perceptions when rocking my Nintendo necklace. I wear it to remind myself of all the good times, video game related and otherwise, I had during my carefree college days.