VERONA, N.J. — Local 36-year-old Jordan Wilkins still hasn’t forgiven himself for completely botching his shopping spree during 1994’s “Nickelodeon Super Toy Run,” friends and family who prefer not to talk about the event confirmed.
“I spent the whole plane ride down to the big Orlando Toys R’ Us formulating my strategy. But when the day came and once they blew the whistle, it went downhill immediately,” said Wilkins, downing his third whiskey of the afternoon in a darkened dive bar. “I went to the video game aisle and grabbed a stuffed animal off the counter, when a Genesis and every Sonic game was staring at me in the face. A fucking stuffed animal? Why was it even there? Then I bee-lined to the action figures, and you know what I threw in my cart instead of a sweet-ass Technodrome? The fucking Street Sharks. I can still see Mark Sommers rolling his eyes and Jeffrey the Giraffe shaking his head at me when I crossed the finish line.”
Wilkins’ wife has tried to help him through his trauma, considering the strain on their marriage.
“I remember early on he used to ominously refer to something called ‘the incident,’ and I assumed he saw his best friend drown when he was a kid or something. It wasn’t until years later I was going through his old VHS tapes, and there it was: Jordan throwing toys no reasonable child would want into his cart,” said his wife Christine. “It made me completely reevaluate the man I married. It was one of the worst toy runs I ever saw: the kids there who were supposed to cheer him on were actively booing him when he grabbed a bunch of bike helmets and elbow pads, instead of actually grabbing some tags for bikes. After I watched the tape I spent two nights at my sister’s place to think things over.”
Though Nickelodeon ended the sweepstakes over 10 years ago, high level executives still receive letters asking for a do-over.
“You’d be shocked how many former contestants — now grown adults, mind you — write to us begging for another crack at the contest. Toys R’ Us is gone. What do they want to do, sprint through Kohls?” said network executive Keith Prindle. “I’d rather read 20 letters from kids with cancer who want to meet the literal cartoon of Spongebob than another diatribe about some idiot who couldn’t tell Legos from Mega Blocks.”
As of press time, Jordan was having a psychotic breakdown in the toy aisle of a local Target after an employee asked if he knew what he was looking for.
Photo courtesy of Duncan Krumrine.