I used to consider Mario my friend and the world’s friend. No matter what job I got, from killing basement rats to hunting the most dangerous game (man), it seemed like Mario was on my side. Like me, he was a working stiff who routinely gobbled mushrooms to impress well-born women. Like Mario, I had been made in Japan to appeal to American audiences. Like Mario, I was a broad ethnic stereotype who was somehow never that offensive. Like Mario, I worked and loved in buildings that were cruelly disfigured at the whim of angry apes, or as the normals call them, the zoning board.
Most of all, there was an economic tie uniting us. Mario was a plumber, and plumbers are well known for keeping it real. Nothing on earth is realer than sewage, and the men who tame it. As I frequently tell my dungeonmaster, I also believe in keeping it real.
At first my love for Mario was of the temperate, moderate variety. I rarely if ever chose his side in debates, and barely prayed to him. But after several years of wild living, Mario was my port in a storm. I considered him as I would an ex-wife with a jar of my teeth: I send him my money regularly, and that’s fine, because sure we’ve had our squabbles, but he has a piece of me when it’s all said and done. As the years went by, Mario blossomed in every profession. I didn’t mind. He was grounded in plumbing. He hadn’t forgotten the old neighborhood, it seemed. I viewed Mario as an extension of my own life, and to an extent, my own peerless body as well. Whenever I cried at circus commercials, it seemed as if Mario was there, whispering “IT’S-A GONNA BE FINE” to me at max volume—and max caring. We were just two regular Joes. Mario was a plumber. I was a man who admired plumbers, and produced the reason for plumbing to exist.
Imagine my surprise—and my Aniston-like sense of betrayal—when Mario announced this week that he was done with the class war and had surrendered his title as plumber. According the America’s leading purveyor of grandpa rage-strokes, FOX News:
Mario is about as close to a mascot that Nintendo has, and for some reason the Japanese gaming giant felt compelled to update his CV. Everyone knows Mario as a pipe-sliding plumber but he’s actually a jack of all trades. “Mario was once a plumber … but that was a long time ago,” Nintendo says on its website.
“A long time ago?” This isn’t the war, you eel-souled fiends. Is Mario a working man, or isn’t he? Mario isn’t Mike Rowe, who can spend years pretending to be what he isn’t. Either Mario is a blue-collar dude with epic time management skills … or he’s a layabout playboy whose main goal is dilettanting around. Like our current President.
Tech publication Kotaku noticed that the character’s profile on Nintendo’s official Japanese-language website states that Mario used to be a plumber. Translated to English it reads: “All around sporty, whether it’s tennis or baseball, soccer or car racing, he does everything cool. As a matter of fact, he also seems to have worked as a plumber a long time ago.” Despite the reminder of his many talents, it didn’t mention any new profession for the famous Italian character.