This got me thinking about another incident in early 1984, a few months after I'd received Red Box Basic for Christmas. A kid at my elementary school was handing out pamphlets which had the words "Dungeons and Dragons" printed prominently on the outside. Seeing this, I became excited and started talking to him, chattering about how great a game it was, and did he play, and all that.
He just said I really needed to read the flier, handed me one, and wandered off.
Later that day, I actually read thing... and was a bit vexed and perplexed, because it didn't jibe with my (at the time very limited) experience of the game. I never interacted with that kid again after that, even though he was in my class.
I held on to the pamphlet for years, but finally tossed it during a move after college in the mid 1990s... and I've regretted that ever since. But after a bit of googling today, I finally found it again!
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(Clicking the pic links to a blog post; scroll down a bit to see images that include scans of the full text.)
What stood out to me as a 10 year old was that real, thinking
adults would confuse a game book with a religious text. (And also its weird focus on quotes with words like "crotch" and "genitals" pulled from various FRPGs.)
As I've grown older, I've learned that adults really aren't nearly as bright as I thought they were when I was a kid.