The Bad - Lessons Learned From Racking Up a Phone Bill
I don't know what it was exactly called, but Nintendo had this helpline that you could call where people would help you through tough stretches in whatever game that was giving you trouble. The catch was that the cost was pretty steep on a minute basis.
I used it frequently for Link's Awakening in the late '90s. Some of those later dungeons were a pain for me and having no internet at the time, I turned to the helpline to solve all my problems.
Sometimes, my question was simple enough for it to be answered in less than a minute, but there were occasions were my call lasted nearly 10 minutes. I remember one time that I called when the guy on the other end said, "You know that we have been on the line for 8 minutes right?" His words of concern fell on deaf ears I'm afraid.
As I said, I knew that it cost money, but I was oblivious to the amount of time that I had spent on the helpline throughout that month, almost all of it exclusively with Link's Awakening. When my mom got the bill in the mail, she couldn't hold back her frustration as she showed me $117 in phone charges from my calls to the helpline.
My mom could have withheld my allowance for a long time. Unfortunately for me, I didn't have one. My mom came up with a creative plan to substitute for cash payment and it was one that I would never forget.
There was a small space between our yard and our driveway. This was due to an massive amount of pebbles making it impossible to grow grass there. My mom made me remove all of them on both sides of our driveway so that grass can be grown there. What started out as ok turned into a tedious affair that drew me crazy. It took me the entire summer to do that, and I don't even want to guess how many hours.
I have to give my mom credit because I never called that place or any other phone line that charges you to call them ever again.
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