So we went Monday night. Give them a day to have somebody else be the insistent asshole. On the way there, I was mentally preparing myself for dejection. "They're not going to have this," I said in the parking lot as we strapped Clark into the Ergo carrier. "They don't even have a Download Station." The only small hope I held came from this week's sales flyer, which mentioned a "free Animal Crossing download" in small print. Of course, a sales flyer doesn't have to mean jack at the local level.

I did not stop at the customer service desk, although it did occur to me that they might have hidden the Download Station there so that they could answer questions about it. I went straight for the video game section.

Going up the game aisles (no R'Zone at this store, just old school flip tags), nothing seemed out of the ordinary. The best I could find was a promo to get some terrible ATV game for free with your DS purchase. So I circled around to the glass case zone, where they have been putting all the really expensive equipment since the 32X launch.

And there it was.

One corner of the glass case held the Download Station and was covered in signage. Happy! But, this being MY Toys R Us, the poor thing is exposed to the elements; the secret white case was cracked open for all to see. It's not especially classy to display an old fat DS with DOS text on the screen, but I guess my TRU enjoys taking the mystery out of life.

As do I. There's going to be some pretty substantial spoilers coming up, so you might want to back out now if you enjoy MEGATON surprises and have faith that your TRU will have some kind of clue that this is happening.

Hilariously, the instructions for the ACWW giveaway are lying flat inside the case. On the top shelf, where no child can see them.

Thrilled that this is actually going to happen, I got right to the business of downloading Animal Crossing junk. Thrilled that the kids clothes were just his height, Clark got right to the business of pulling jumpers off the racks and handing them to Mommy.

We're not exactly out of the woods yet, because, this being Animal Crossing, there is an incredibly laborious procedure involved. You need to buy a bunch of Bottle Mail, because this is presented (in-game) as you sending a message in a bottle out to sea, and then having someone else - Nintendo - send you a bottled message in reply.

In my bottle mail, I wrote "thanks TRU" or something equally ingratiating. Towards the end, I was doing "OMG I JUST NEED ONE MORE."

Then you toss the bottle into the ocean (just one), save and quit. Then you go into Tag Mode and you get a reply almost immediately.

So it's back to your town to search the beach for the new bottle that has surely washed up on the sands.

All in all, a lengthy process. I was there for an hour and did it eleven times. Because, as you could have guessed, there are SIX exclusive furniture items and they are distributed randomly. Since the Download Station was in full view, I could see how many times it had been accessed that day (twice, until I showed up, which is kinda sad) but not which item was coming up next. I received three 1-UP Mushrooms, two Fire Bars, one Flagpole, one Question Box, two Starmen and two Green Pipes. Here's what they look like:

The rotating Fire Bars are quite fun, and every item comes with its own signature sound effects and music.

I'm fairly certain this is not the entire Mario Series (carpet? wallpaper? brick box?), but it remains to be seen what cockamamie way Nintendo will choose to distribute any additional items. Not to mention how long it could take them to get to it. I'm thinking Wii bonus downloads.

But now for the crazy part. This is Spoiler Level Two.

Tonight I jump back into the game to do some redecorating in case anybody shows for Thursday's Open Gate Night, and I notice a new animal villager. A monkey. Not the usual gorilla, but a chimpanzee type very similar to Porter from the original Animal Crossing.

"That's neat," I think, "Didn't know the game had chimps in villager rotation."

I figure the chimp is one of ACWW's new rare pair animals, like the two octopi or cows, and I just never noticed her in the Player's Guide. Now, I have no idea when she could have appeared, since I stopped talking to villagers weeks ago. So I talk to her, and she says her name is Elise and she is from the town of Nintendo.

"That's cute," I think, "Some kid named his town Nintendo."

A few minutes later, it occurs to me that I don't know anyone with a town name of "Nintendo."

At this point, I'm like Tom Hanks in the DaVinci Code. I dig up that awful Player's Guide to see if there are any monkeys in there. I look up and down my Friend List for town names. And like the All-Seeing Eye on the back of every dollar bill, I suddenly consider that Elise appeared in my game thanks to the Toys R Us stunt. It certainly explains the message inside the bottle:

When I read that at the store, I didn't give it two seconds of thought. This is Animal Crossing. You get that Mad Lib kind of crap all the damn time. Especially from Katrina.

One last thing. As I was running around my town tonight, something very odd happened. I think I fell, or something, because my character stopped, some sad music played, and then something floated into the air. I'm being vague because it all happened behind a tree. After the music ended, the game warped me back to my front door. Is this some other, pranky aspect to the TRU download? (UPDATE: I was bitten by a tarantula! Nothing unusual about that at all.)

One thing's for sure, the Player's Guide won't know anything about it. But three cheers to Nintendo for making this completely worth everybody's time.