They left him a broken elf, with his bag empty, his bowlike mouth drooping, the twinkle in his eyes snuffed out. He was left to wander wearily from one toy workshop to another, his lips forming the same strange-sounding word at every stop: ``Nintendo?`` ``Nintendo?`` ``Nintendo?``

The Japanese manufacture the state-of-the-art video game, the Nintendo Entertainment System, for Nintendo of America Inc. in Redmond, Wash. Just like in 1987, Nintendo is the No. 1 toy of the year, besting even Barbie in the toy polls. Where can you buy it? Virtually nowhere.

It is not an inexpensive item. The guts of the system, called the ``control deck`` in Nintendo-ese, and two controllers cost about $80. For $20 more, you get the Nintendo Action Set, which includes the control deck and controllers, plus a zapper light gun and two game cartridges. There are dozens of Nintendo game cartridges that may be purchased separately for prices ranging from about $20 to $50. And there is optional equipment you may purchase to make the system work even better.

This is the year the Japanese brought Santa to his knees.

They left him a broken elf, with his bag empty, his bowlike mouth drooping, the twinkle in his eyes snuffed out. He was left to wander wearily from one toy workshop to another, his lips forming the same strange-sounding word at every stop: ``Nintendo?`` ``Nintendo?`` ``Nintendo?``

The Japanese manufacture the state-of-the-art video game, the Nintendo Entertainment System, for Nintendo of America Inc. in Redmond, Wash. Just like in 1987, Nintendo is the No. 1 toy of the year, besting even Barbie in the toy polls. Where can you buy it? Virtually nowhere.

Ask me what I would give for a Nintendo game right now. Never mind. I'm ashamed to say.

It is not an inexpensive item. The guts of the system, called the ``control deck`` in Nintendo-ese, and two controllers cost about $80. For $20 more, you get the Nintendo Action Set, which includes the control deck and controllers, plus a zapper light gun and two game cartridges. There are dozens of Nintendo game cartridges that may be purchased separately for prices ranging from about $20 to $50. And there is optional equipment you may purchase to make the system work even better.

The whole shebang attaches to your television set. And in the world of home video games, it is the best you can get - arcade-quality graphics, control and excitement right in your own living room.

Does that make it worth the money? I don't know. I've never played it. But I know children who have, and they say they'd give up their allowance for life to have one. I know one particular child who says it is all he wants for Christmas and means it. He even sat on Santa's knee and said dejectedly that if all the Nintendos were gone, Santa should just bring him ``whatever's left over in your bag on Christmas Eve.``

Sometimes we parents feel driven by forces beyond our control. You know what I mean? In my darkest moments during the last week, I've actually thought of offering a bribe to the toy merchants.

Perhaps those same forces made two men stand outside the Toy King store in Largo for more than four hours one day last week, just hoping to be first in line when a truck arrived to deliver two Nintendo control decks to the store. Maybe that force drove a woman to dash into Clearwater's Toys R Us last week and threaten to write nasty letters to headquarters if she couldn't get a control deck. ``I spend all day apologizing for not having it,`` said a manager at the store. ``It's a nightmare.``

When a precious few of the most sought-after game cartridges arrived at the Toy King store several days ago, ``We almost had a fight on our hands,`` said assistant manager Lee McNeely. ``We couldn't even get them out of the box to put prices on them. People were grabbing them before we could.``

All over America, similar scenes are occurring because there is a nationwide shortage of the control decks and several of the most desirable game cartridges. The full impact of the shortage is only now being felt because many parents waited until the last minute to look for the games. Perhaps they were waiting for Christmas bonuses to arrive. Maybe they were debating the appropriateness of spending that much money for one gift. Or maybe, like me, they were lulled into complacency by seeing the Nintendo game widely advertised at sale prices. How were we to know that the advertisements were prepared weeks or months ago when Nintendos were plentiful?

The Nintendo folks up in Redmond, Wash., have been hearing from lots of retailers and parents. They feel real bad about this shortage. ``It's not something we created or would even wish to create,`` said William White Jr., director of advertising and public relations.

White notes that the company is distributing twice as many pieces of hardware this year as last year - about 7-million. But he says that is about 17 percent less than the company estimated it would need to meet the demand (and that estimate may have been low). And the demand for game cartridges is 20 percent greater than the supply, he says.

The problem goes back to the Japanese. They are producing as many of the control decks as they can at the moment. And a worldwide shortage of the type of computer memory chips needed for video games has impacted the Nintendo company.

The Japanese produce the vast majority of computer chips used by the United States, which has only a few major chip manufacturers of its own. The shortage in chips began after the United States signed a computer chip trade agreement with Japan in 1986 to prevent the Japanese from ``dumping`` low-priced chips on the American market and hurting our domestic chip producers. The Japanese responded by cutting back on sales and production.

Thus, because of a trade accord with the Japanese, we find ourselves this joyous Christmas season sitting at our telephones, punching the numbers of the area toy stores and asking that age-old question, ``Got any Nintendos today?`` Some stores have assigned employees just to answer Nintendo calls, which come in by the hundreds daily. At the Service Merchandise store on U.S. 19 in Clearwater, 90 percent of the calls the store gets are about Nintendo games, said co-manager Jeff Lake.

``If I could get my hands on a thousand of them, I could sell them this week,`` Lake said. ``The supply and demand is way out of balance.``

There is hope, says White. The company is continuing to ship some control decks and games to its retailers, so the especially vigilant shopper may be able to snare one as it comes off the truck this week. But certainly there is no guarantee from Nintendo of America Inc. that there will be a Nintendo game under every tree on Christmas morning.

The ironic part of this situation is that the word Nintendo, translated from the Japanese, means, ``You work hard, but in the end, it's in heaven's hands.``

Amen. Diane Steinle is editor of editorials for the North Pinellas editions of the St. Petersburg Times.

It seems folks will have a slight moment of deja-vu this Christmas ;)