My Wii Moment

As anybody who has ever played the Nintendo Wii knows there are stories abound about how the Wii can bring on destruction without a moment's notice. For me, that moment came in a rather heated game of Wii Tennis about three months ago. To begin with I was not very good at Wii Tennis despite my near mastery of nearly all of the other Wii Sports and so when I got things all tied up in the third set, I was anxious to get it over with. My opportunity came in the form of an overhand smash which I took with a great amount of vigor. What resulted was my shoulder popping completely out of joint causing a pain which I can only describe as "insanely horrendously horrible" to cascade from my shoulder and then throughout the rest of my body. Thankfully, I hit the living room floor hard enough to pop the shoulder back in place which did well to subside the tears and cussing. As I lay there clutching my arm, my son, a good boy, walked over to ask, "Daddy, are you gonna get up and play or can I watch my toons now?" Yes, my son loves his daddy.

Anyway, I tell this story only to say that I figured this was my "Wii Moment." It was my story that I would tell about my horrible experience with the Ninentdo Wii. I thought that until today, Thanksgiving Day, when we went to my mom and stepdad's house to eat Thanksgiving dinner.

Recently, my stepdad, after two years of debating on what new TV to buy, purchased a 42 inch Sony Bravia LCD HDTV. Arguably, this was, and still is, the finest LCD HDTV on the market. Even more recently, my stepdad won a Nintendon Wii at work. He even called me at the time to tell me about it since he rarely won much of anything his entire life. Take that and add a bunch of family members eating turkey and drinking adult beverages and you can see the perfect storm beginning to form here.

Long story short, my Wii Moment was not my shoulder wrenching out of joint, it was hearing the sound of a mortar blast as a family member went for a strike on Wii Sports Bowling and accidentally sent the Wii remote at Mach 10 into my stepdad's new Sony Bravia HDTV.

Really, looking back on it, there was no way we could have avoided it.

The Pains of Life

The one thing I've discovered as you grow older is that life likes to occasionally deal you out some serious pain just to make sure your still paying attention. Sometimes it hits you early, with a nasty earache at the age of six or a broken collar bone at the age of ten, but mostly it just comes as a product of time, like taste comes to finely aged wine. For me, I thought a nasty ear or toothache was the worst pain ever until I went to college and got my nose shattered playing racquetball. That sucked. Then, after college, I wrenched my back out and cried for a bit until it finally reset itself and I was good, fairly pain-free, for a few years until I got a kidney stone. A kidney stone, for any who might not know, is akin to having a small tornado placed on your intestines where it just sits and spins for what feels like forever. Kidney stones, I'm certain, actually have the ability to stop time itself. Ask a woman who gave birth to a child and also passed a kidney stone which was worse and I'm certain she would say that she would have gladly given birth to the kid sideways as opposed to passing a kidney stone. Long story short, I thought the stone was the worst pain I had in my life until I stopped by to see my dad today (a man of tough pedigree and a survivor of no less than three kidney stones) to discuss sports and general chit chat. He appeared gravely ill despite still being at work. He had his foot propped on his desk. He had gout in his foot. I didn't have a clue as to what gout was although I did associate it with World War II for some reason. I asked dad how bad it hurt and he replied with great conviction,

"Well, I tried to find some twelve guage shells to shoot off my foot a couple of nights ago."

"That doesn't answer my question," I told him. "All I want to know is if it is more painful than kidney stones?"

"Right now, I'd take a kidney stone over this," he answered after little thought.

Not liking his answer, I quickly turned the conversation to sports and general chit chat for the next half hour. Dad didn't seem to be into talking that much so I had to support most of the conversation but it was still good as it kept my mind off the idea that I might have to one day deal with another, even more painful, life pain.

New Suit Day!

So I bought a new suit about a year and a half ago.....a really good suit. Grey with pin stripes. All wool. Very nice. Anyway, so I buy my suit, and I'm really stoked about wearing it to work (yes, I know, that's sad but, hey, I like new suits) when I discover the next morning I have somehow gained about ten pounds overnight. I stare down at the two sides of the dress pants, each failing by a full two inches to meet each other in the middle. Looming over them is my belly button, hovering like a skin-covered jelly supervisor, telling them it's their problem for being pants not his problem for being an overweight belly. Me, feeling caught in the middle, chose not to have an opinion as I abandoned the suit to a far off corner of my suit closet and chose a nice pair of expandable slacks and a sports coat to wear instead.

Like I said, that was a year and a half ago. Today, feeling frisky, I decided to try on the suit again and I'll be damned what was two inches is now a manageable quarter of an inch at best! Long story short, after a year and a half of waiting, I have a new suit! I must have somehow lost weight despite watching more T.V., eating more crappy food, and playing a shitload of Wii.

The new Wii Table Tennis game to be exact.

My point: screw your carb diets and exercising. I eat crappy food and play the Wii and now I've got a new suit to show for it.....what have you got?