Wii, Wii, Wii...All the Way Home

It has become my newest Holiday obsession, the ever-elusive great White Whale to my Captain Ahab, the One Ring to my Gollum, the Bandit to my Sheriff Buford T. Justice. Yes, I have been hunting for a Nintendo Wii gaming system, and I'm not even sure why. The girls' presents have been purchased and wrapped, and we're pretty much done with all of our Christmas shopping. I simply mentioned to Diane a few weeks ago that it might be fun to have a Wii because four people can play at a time and the system at least requires you to get up and move around to play, so you can't be a total couch potato. She rolled her eyes. "I just know how you are about video games."

"What? That was twenty years ago!" I defended myself. Man, you do one stupid thing and end up paying for it for the rest of your life. We were dating, both of us fresh out of high school, and I was over at her house one afternoon. They had a Commodore 64 computer and we were playing Summer Olympics. OK, "I" was playing Summer Olympics. Dinner was just about ready and Diane came into the room to ask me what I wanted to drink. I was performing in the high diving event and was concentrating on nailing the perfect dive. "Hang on just one sec," I said with no idea of how much I had just pissed her off. She turned and left the room without another word. She had become second to a video game and has never allowed me to forget it.

I'd like to think that I've grown and matured in the past twenty years, and, if not, I think I've certainly learned my lesson: to give my wife my undivided attention even if it costs me my video game life. See? Problem solved.

Shortly after our brief "discussion" about the Wii, I revealed my desires to my brother. "Good luck with that," he laughed, "You can't find 'em anywhere. And people are lined up to snatch 'em as soon as they come in stock. It's crazy." Well that seemed to be it. The gauntlet had been thrown down. Oh yeah, I thought, we'll see if I can't get a Wii for Christmas. And that's when my obsession began.

Perhaps "obsession" is too strong of a word. It's not like I'm calling all of the stores in town and asking them when their next shipment of Wii's is arriving so I can camp out and snag one as soon as the doors open. My obsession falls more into the providential realm. I've been faithfully monitoring several Wii Tracker websites to check on different stores' online availability, and if I can somehow manage to secure one, then great, it was meant to be. If not, then oh well, maybe next Christmas.

But here's where the obsession comes into play. This morning I've been monitoring the websites so faithfully that I'm afraid to leave this stinking chair for fear of missing that ever-so-brief window of opportunity. My bowels are screaming at me right now, but I don't dare leave because I know that as soon as I do, Target will have them available at the best possible price, which will sell out in 2 minutes. I just know it'll happen.

My obsession does have its limits, though. I'm not going to pay an exorbitant amount for my Wii. I won't go to Amazon or E-bay to pay $450 for a $250 system. And I'm not going to fall for a $700, 10 game system package from Walmart or Toys-R-Us either. I will pay a fair price for a basic system or I won't buy it at all. Then I'll pay the $250 in shipping charges to get it here by Christmas.