November 14, 2006
“Wii”diculous
Cabbage Patch Dolls, Tickle-Me Elmo, Elmo TMX (or whatever the name is). . . Do you know what these toys all have in common? At one point they were THE toy to have for Christmas. If I remember correctly, my Mom stood in line to get my sister and I each a Cabbage Patch Doll way back in the day when they were all the rage and every little girl MUST. HAVE. ONE. AND. NOW. Elmo is the little kid toy of that caliber this year, I suppose.
But nothing compares to the Wii.
Yes, you heard me correctly. Have you heard of it? Wii. It’s just a new gaming station that has a wand that you actually use instead of sitting there pushing buttons. It’s the "active" gaming system that my husband decided our daughter must have for Christmas. "It will be great!" he said enthusiastically a few weeks ago. "It will get her up and moving around. It’s so cool!"
A monotone "great." That was my response. He showed me demo’s on the internet and I was slightly swayed. I am NOT a video games type of gal. Never have been, I doubt I ever will be. But I thought it at least looked interesting.
So, like stupid first-timers when it comes to wanting the Christmas frenzy toy, what do we do? We ask Big I if she’d be interested in something like that for Christmas. Frankly, we’re up to our nostrils in princess gowns, crowns and sparkly shoes and could use a little break from all things princess for a bit. She decided that, "YES!", that would be so "a-citing!" ("exciting" in Big I-ese).
And then the worst possible thing happened. No pre-orders, or we missed them or something, because as parents, this is the first time that we’re wanting the frenzy toy. We had no clue. We checked online and at all the local stores, and none of them are doing pre-orders anymore. Each store is getting about 12 Wii’s for the non-preordering folk. Freaking fabulous.
So, Saturday night, instead of kicking back with a nice glass of wine and watching Saturday Night Live, my husband will probably be at Walmart, anxiously awaiting the midnight release of the all powerful Wii. When he arrives, I will venture a guess that he’ll be in line behind people who’ve been camping out since yesterday, people who’ve decided that peeing in public is a perfectly acceptable thing to do (or that peeing in Depends is o.k. too), people who have brought along a cooler full of candy bars and Yoo-hoo’s, totally prepared for the five day pilgrimage in the line of Walmart, people who will not hesitate to hit a person over the head with that cooler or bottle of Yoo-hoo if they even think you’re trying to cut them in line. I will also predict that the few many greedy Ebayers who preordered 15 Wii’s a piece will waltz to the front of that line, pile up their cart and rub their greedy little troll hands all the way to the bank, err, I mean, their computer where there will be approximately 196 bids for each Wii system. People will bid up to $600 dollars or more for a system that costs less than $300. Don’t believe me? Go to ebay right now and search for Wii.
Unbelievable if you ask me.
I can assure you that Mr. and Mrs. BBM will not: engage in any activities that would require martial arts skills just to get a Wii, buy Depends in an attempt to outlast the losers already in line, or pay a ridiculous amount of money to a bunch of greedy jerks on Ebay just so that our daughter can wake up with a Wii on Christmas morning.
If we’re successful getting a Wii, great. But my instincts are telling me we won’t be, and Santa is not above giving out an IOU as I’m sure the stores will be stocked the day after Christmas. Christmas isn’t about what’s under the tree; it’s about being together, as a family, on a day that’s about so much more than the gifts.
And to all you pre-ordering people selling them on Ebay for an insane amount of money. . . Bah Humbug to you!
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I will be attempting to get a Wii this weekend as well.
My five year old daughter came home this evening wanting a nintendo DS. Another girl from her class had one on the bus ride home and let M. play with it. She is *so* getting one for xmas. I can’t wait to play video games with her. It must be a father daughter thing.
Greedy ebayers! And I thought you Americans where all for free market trading and turning that fast buck :P.
But you’re right that Christmas is very much about the family and all getting together. We’ve been buying less and less for the last couple of years because we just end up tripping over the stuff after a couple of days! In fact last year they both had gifts of money that they put towards there respective hobbies (we’ll they both ended up using them to buy sparring kits! What kids!! 😀 )
Isn’t it amazing how people try to make so much money off of Christmas? My daughter wanted the already sold-out TMX Elmo and I was lucky that another blogger found one for me!
Good luck!
I think you want the Wii because it has “the Nunchuk controller”. 😉
I have felt myself sucked into that feeling…I was just thinking about it this morning, how glad I was that there aren’t any games like this that she really wants, no Elmo dolls, nothing like that. Unless she finds out they exist, of course…
I got fake Cabbage Patch Kids for Christmas for this reason! AND also because my parents didn’t have the money. but either way, I’m going to try my damndest NOT to get caught up in all of this Christmas crazies.
p.s. Hubby’s step mother already bought Allie the TMX Elmo for Xmas. *shrug* Didn’t ask for it, didn’t even think about it cause I didn’t want to go through the insane-ness on trying to get it…..but waaalaaa it’s coming!
I actually read on a website that some Chinese use Depends when they travel for the Chinese holidays. The trains are so packed and I am not sure if there are any loos, if there are they are surely nasty.
you know what’s even more wiidiculous? Fry’s forcing prospective buyers to buy 5 Wii games if they want to get a console. Look at this page: http://www.kotaku.com/gaming/ps3/rumor-frys-forcing-mega-ps3wii-bundles-in-store-214459.php
5 games at $60 a piece is another $300 for games you are unsure you really want right now… For one, I think there will be enough Wii to go around before Christmas rolls around. Maybe not on launch day, but there will be more available. I have no real knowledge of this, just a gut feeling.
And don’t worry about being new to the whole console gaming thing. We bought a Gamecube for Andrew last Xmas and that was the first I’d been anywhere close to a console since my good old Intellivision in my parents’ basement. 🙂 The Nintendo line of games is great for kids, and adults alike though. Plenty of board like games to play with many players too, making for a good reunion kind of console.
Take care, Steve