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I Wonder . . .

“What Happened to Pauline?”

Remember the game Donkey Kong? In that game, we had the plucky little hero named Jumpman, who’s a carpenter trying to scale a few half-built buildings to save his girlfriend Pauline from the crazy Kong. Well, Jumpman became a plumber named Mario, and Donkey Kong became, well, Donkey Kong. But, the damsel in distress? Where did she go? In all of his succeeding games, Mario is trying to save Princess Peach.

I’m pretty sure that Mario got dumped. Sure he might have saved Pauline, but you gotta wonder why she had been singled out in the first place. And, was it Mario’s shoddy carpentry that gave the Kongster a place to hide in the first place? I mean, if Mario had been able to bring the building to completion on time, he wouldn’t have had to worry about jumping over flaming barrels, pulling pins, and grabbing hammers. Come on, had Mario and his shifty, as yet unseen brother Luigi, actually finished their project, Mario could have just taken the elevator up to the top floor, shot Donkey Kong in the back, and rescued the girl.

I think what happened is this:

Mario and Pauline are at some swanky Redmond, Washington restaurant. They’re having some after dinner coffee and playing footsies under the table. All of the sudden, a ravenous and steroid riddled gorilla (escaped from the zoo) barges into the quiet dining establishment looking for something to nosh on. The only occupied table at this late hour is the Mario table. With nothing to eat, the Kong does the only other thing he can think of . . . kidnap the girl with the hopes that her boyfriend will try to bribe him with bananas.

Now we have the Donkey Kong games.

After Mario saves Pauline from the knuckle-dragger they try to put their lives back together to a time before this harrowing experience. She suffers from PTSD, and he is slowly withdrawing into a fantasy world of man eating plants, huge sewer pipes, and hammer throwing turtles.

Pauline, seeing her former lover just becoming a mere cartoon of his tough-guy carpenter self, decides to cut bait and work on building up another relationship. Word is that she hooked up with Cody from the Final Fight series.