Ever need to hide something? Just Staple it to a Video Game Manual

Recently I had the sudden, random urge to play the Sims 2. I bought the Sims 2 a little after it was released and also own two of the current 113 expansion packs available for it. I had uninstalled it from my computer so I would have more space, so I was going to have to re-install all 7 or 8 disks.

I popped in the first CD and began the installation, only to have the game ask for the CD key. Of course, the CD key was not on the CD itself. It wasn’t even on the game box or CD case. It was on the game manual. Now anybody who owns several video games will tell you buy a video game, 3 things almost always happen.

Step 1: You open the box
Step 2: You read the manual
Step 3: You lose the manual forever

I had taken step 3 about 2 years ago, so there were about an infinite number of places that it could be located. Game Manual Technology (GMT) has dramatically increased over the last few years, so much that the newest game manuals are actually biological lifeforms, and as soon as you open the box they will jump out and skitter across the room, looking for a place to hide. I suspect that government officials hide their top-secret documents by simply stapling them to a video game manual and setting it on their desk, confident that in a few minutes the manual will be gone, never to be seen again.

Normally when I open a new video game or appliance box, I take the following measures:

1. Grab the manual
2. Put glue on the back of the manual
3. Stick the manual to some cardboard
4. Staple it a few times, just to be safe
5. Use a Nail gun to nail the cardboard to a sheet of steel
6. Weld the sheet of steel to a rectangle column granite that I had piledrived into the underlying bedrock and anchored there with 16 concrete blocks.

Now most people reading this are probably saying things like, “That’s way too much effort for something like a game manual” and “You can’t weld steel to granite” and so on, but thats the price you have to pay nowadays to keep a manual safe. However, when i bought the Sims 2 I followed the “read manual then lose it” method, so my manual was nowhere to be found.

After hours of searching and hanging up “Lost: Sims 2 game manual” posters around the neighborhood, I gave up. I suspect that in 3000 years, explores walking through ancient mine shaft in Africa will find a crumpled booklet of paper on the ground, and they will all stand around asking each other what “The Sims 2” is and exactly how the hell it ended up in a mine shaft in Africa.

When I was putting the Sims 2 CD #1 away, I noticed that I was also somehow missing the 4th CD, so I wouldn’t have been able to install it anyway. If anybody is willing to donate a Sims 2 CD #4 and a non-lost Sims manual, please let me know. Also before you send it, please make sure to secure the manual in a small straightjacket and put it inside a vacuum-sealed bag.

Explore posts in the same categories: Computer/Games Stuff

Tags: manual, Sims, Sims 2, video game

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