I have to say my best Tamagotchi experience was my first. I had a mametchi on the V1 in 97, for my first run ever, and I had it up to 18 tama years old when we went on the family vacation to Washington D.C. It was a teal she'll with fuscia accents, and there are pictures of me at various memorials as well as a couple of museums with it. One day, we took it to the hotel pool, and I got a little water n it, so I had a few permanently lit pixels, but I kept it going and eventually the water marks went away. It was the next to the last day of the trip, Mamethi was 25, I believe, and we left the hotel room to go do some more sightseeing. I realized as the elevator doors opened to the lobby that I had left my Tamagotchi in the room. I remember the lobby of that hotel, because I was nearly traumatized trying to tell my dad we had to go back and get it. He said no, repeatedly, and when we got back later, Mametchi had gone back to the tama planet surrounded by 4 piles of poo. I cried like the little girl I was, and my father, bless him, kept a straight face of appropriate concern and comforted me during my time of loss. 18 years later, we laugh about it, but at the time, he didn't realize how important it was to me until I was heartbroken over my loss.
Even though it's a sad story, it's still my favorite because it was the first time in my life where I realized parents can be wrong, even when they are wrong, you have to trust them, and when they realize they're wrong, they'll buy you ice cream from a street vendor when they're tired and hungry, just to let you know they do care. My dad and I still joke around about that, and at least 5 times in my life he has apologized for "killing" my tamagotchi.
Every time I buy a new one, he jokes around about "keep it away from me!" Or, "better not take it on vacation!" I'm almost 30, he's almost 60, and despite the amount of upset it caused at the time, it has (amongst other things) kept us close over the years. Tho older I get, the more I realize I like having inside jokes with my dad. A lot of my friends don't have the luxury of being adults with both their parents present in their lives, and he's finally, in the last couple of years, realized that tamagotchi is my way of having maternal instinct without having children. Hopefully, I'll give him a grandchild soon, but in the meantime, he finally gets what it meant to me then and we both look at the argument that ensued through different lenses, often laughing until we cry tears of joy over so ething that once had me crying genuine tears.
(At the time, he bought me ice cream, then we watched loony toons on the hotel T.V. and I forgave him about a half hour after the cartoons started.)
