Saturday, January 12, 2008

Wii

About ten days before Christmas, my elder son informed me that he wanted a Wii.

[insert gales of increasingly hysterical laughter here]

Ten days, y'all. Uhm... nope. Even Santa doesn't have those skills.

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Due to a variety of events in life, I didn't manage to do most of my Christmas shopping (even the Santa stuff) until December 24th. Sigh. That seems to be a bit of a pattern in my life, although usually I do a bit better and get most of it done on the 23rd.

I'm aware that's a relatively insignificant improvement.

The only time I varied from that pattern was when I was expecting my younger son whose due date was December 6th. Somewhere in my feeble gestating mind I managed to hook onto the quite rational idea that I really did NOT want to be out prancing about doing last-minute Christmas shopping with a newborn in tow, so I got the shopping done in October that year.

So of course? The child was twelve days past his due date. I'd had more shopping time than I'd thought. But considering the fact that I was the size of a small island nation by my third trimester, it was just as well that I'd managed to get the lead out a bit earlier that year.

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Oh anyway, my point? Was that this year I was insanely doing my Christmas shopping on Christmas Eve. And that my elder son had unreasonable expectations which I'd had to crush the previous night by gently explaining that Santa and I had been e-mailing each other and that although a Wii wasn't in the offing for Christmas, it looked pretty good for his birthday. There was much disappointment and I felt like the lowest lifeform on the planet, although I did reassure him that this type of thing had happened to me before and Santa always came through with some great surprises in matters like this.

My mother had very kindly offered to have me drop the children off at her house so that I could get all the Santa stuff and other desperation measures taken care of. I dropped off the boys around 10:00 a.m., and reluctantly turned my tires toward Toys R Us. I was playing Trans Siberian Orchestra's "Christmas Eve Sarajevo" at full blast on my speakers both to energize me and drown out the screaming "NO NO NO! I do NOT want to do this!!!" in my head -- I'm not a graceful last-minute shopper even though I put myself through it on a regular basis, and crowds are not my thing... yes I'm aware that I'm an idiot -- and managed to force my car into the parking lot of said megatoystore with minimal trauma.

Thankfully, the store wasn't that crowded all things considered. All the other idiots must have gotten most of their shopping done on the 23rd. Heh. I had my list and blazed my way down the aisles.

"T-Rex for the younger?"

Check

"Mario Kart for the elder?"

Check.

"Tool bench for the younger?"

Check. My God, this thing is huge. I hope it fits into my trunk. And what the hell is with this some assembly required crap? Isn't that supposed to make it, say, smaller?

"T-Rex Skeleton for the elder?"

Check. Some assembly required. Again. I'm going to hate myself for this.

"Roboquad for Amanda?"

Check. Don't look at me like that. Santa said I could have one.

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Once all the above and an assortment of other items including enough batteries to power the afore-mentioned island nation were in my cart, I made it to the checkout line. The cashier was amazingly cheerful and friendly considering the insanity surrounding her, and we talked a bit as she was ringing up my purchase. In the course of that conversation I mentioned my elder son's belated Wii request and the futility thereof.

At that point, a lady came up to the checkout station and said, "I don't want you to think I was listening in on your conversation, but I'm one of the managers here and, well, it's my job to pay attention to what's going on. I heard you mentioning the Wii, and just wanted to let you know -- now I'm not making any promises -- but that if you stay around here until right before noon, there's a very good chance you could get one."

!!!!!!!

It was 11:20 at that point. Of COURSE I was going to stay until noon. My God, a chance to save my son's Christmas? Was worth every minute of hanging around that store.

I went out to the car and loaded all my purchases. Well, I tried. I shuffled things around in the trunk to make room for the gigantic yet still "some assembly required" toolbench which looked like it would fit, but then found the box was about one inch too long to make the drop down into the trunk which would enable me to shut it.

Huh.

So I did what any reasonable and sufficiently desperate woman would do. I turned slightly to the side and very classily kicked that damned box until it finally gave in. Success!

I then quite prudently put all thoughts of the eventual extraction of same out of my head -- one can only deal with so much at one time -- and went back into the store where I waited. And waited. And probably made the girl in the electronics department nervous as I randomly walked around while buying absolutely nothing...

And then right around noon, the Wiis very quietly came out of the back room to those of us in the know who had been awaiting their arrival. I got the third one out.

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As I drove toward my mother's house, a TSO variant of "Joy to the World" started playing from my CD, and I very inappropriately sang along, "Joy to the world, I got a Wii!"

Christmas morning was a success, what I can remember of it at any rate. I'd been up until 3:30 that morning trying to put together various toys, and cursing the name of whatever moron thought "Some Assembly Required" was a freaking GOOD idea, so I was a tad bit sleep deprived and the caffeination process didn't fully kick in until about 10:00 a.m.

The kids were up at 5:00 a.m. So yeah... tired. But happy.

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The elder son played with the Wii at my parents' house where my sister's boyfriend set it up for him. We brought everything home later on that day, but the Wii wasn't mentioned as he was too busy playing with his other toys and games. Until today that is.

And now I can't hook the wretched thing up. The cable box is plugged into the little thingies I'm supposed to plug the Wii doohickies into (don't you love my technical expertise??). So now I'm trying to figure out if there's something on the cable box I can plug the Wii into or what.

Yes, I've read the manual. It is Not. Helpful. Sigh.

Oh well. If anyone has a clue about this, let me know. Any offers of assistance will be greatly appreciated, and if I do get the thing hooked up? Might have more time for blogging.

Just saying. ;)

3 comments:

Barbara said...

Not sure what kind of setup you have, we don't have a Wii but we have PS2 and Xbox 360 and the setup is the same for both of them.

Are you referring to the three wires? The red, white, and yellow ones? If so, just unhook them and switch them out, then switch back when the game is over. If you have a DVD player hooked up, just swap those out there. Either way.

We have to do that with our DVD when he moves one of his consoles into the living room to play because of the way our setup is done (receiver to VCR to DVD to TV, unhooking the DVD from the VCR to plug the console in there, simply because those inlets are in the front so it's easier).

Mauigirl said...

Great, glad you got the Wii for your son!

Unknown said...

Amanda, oh boy.

I am guessing that by now you have your Wii up and running (or your boys would have rioted).

Damn but Wii is fun. Even my papa, who is 78, love to play. The kids get sweaty and happy when they play (unlike intense PS2 games, which cause cold-hearted pallor) Wii is so interactive. Ya gotta talk to each other, when playing 2 player games.

Hope all is now running smoothly? updates, please!!