deep breath raising the box with the japanese art style illustration on the cover two runners in motion one in red shorts the other with blue shorts and a headband competing in an olympic sprint he had a spot at the left edge of the nintendo case for the box where it joined his other copy he even put on his white orthodontist gloves to first touch the game gosh its beautiful he said he has yet to play it the game put a down payment on a little brick house with black shutters in gastonia for jennifer and jeff it bought a microfiber couch and a pool table it helped pay off jennifers student loans it paid for some of her pyrex collection stacked in luminous colors in the dining room with just 2000 left over to put in the bank one day not long ago jennifer stood in her kitchen frying bacon and giggling i dont know if it changed our lives she said drawing the i into an ah in a lilting accent jeff a tall hefty dude in a ball cap shook his head oh but it definitely sped everything up he said this has been wild after breakfast the couple gazed at each other at one point holding hands almost in comic affirmation of their journey together via video game which had led them to an orthodontist in indiana and to this every time they hired someone new at work his coworkers first thing would beg jeff tell us the story tell the story of the game jeff laughed its such a horrible game though in 2015 tod heard from a man named jay bartlett who loved video games so much he took on a quest to meet other collectors trying to procure every licensed nes game within the span of a month it was literally a nintendo quest a documentary of the same name that trailed him on his road trip stadium events the movie foreshadowed would be the hardest of all to get at the end of the movie jay visited the only orthodontist in bedford indiana jay stood in tods basement as the orthodontist held his copy of stadium events considering whether he would sell it tod knew he didnt need three copies of the game he didnt want to hoard them and he knew other collectors wanted it tod saw plenty of himself in jay that feeling of wanting to be complete he held out the game his copy with the long cut in the back of the box relinquishing his ownership passing it like a family heirloom from one obsessive to another he was the perfect buyer tod says today someone who was passionate about it someone with a great background story but even now tod admits he dreams about what might be inside tim atwoods remaining box and whether anyone could ever persuade tim to sell obsessions dont stop just because you have everything you obsessed