Donna got a Wii for graduation. The primary person who plays it is Claire who knows she better not even ask on a school night. Usually Claire’s MO on a Friday is get home from school pop in a movie, check her DVR list from the week or boot up the Wii. Tonight it was Wii. She began with some of the basic Wii generic games like Frisbee.

I hesitated for years about getting a gaming system in my own home. I remember college, high school and younger when we’d get into a game and play until the sun came up (literally). I finally acquiesced and knew I’d stay away. Well, Donna came home and we were enjoying watching Claire play so we decided to play a game with her. We picked Super Mario Bros because a) we only had to of the extra little pack thingies that go on the remote and b) cause, it’s totally Old Skool (I killed it on Nintendo 64).

It was 7pm. We started playing. We had such a great time, yelling at the tv, spilling over our beer (me, not Claire), having Donna video record us jumping around, etc… At ten til 9pm we made Claire go to bed, saved the game, and turned off the console before we played well into the night.

This was truly the very best night we three had together in a long time. Awesome awesome.

Last night my mother’s cousin and my father’s cousin both visited us and after spending some time in the kitchen around appetizers and drinks, we all moved into the living room where my sister turned on the Wii. My dad and his cousin played for awhile but then Claire wanted to play. They flipped from electronic darts to shuffleboard where you need to swing the remote to compete. Claire grabbed a remote and more or less challenged everyone in the room. She’d never played Wii before but quickly picked up the idea of how to play. Within an hour, she was beating everyone at Wii shuffle board and was ready to move onto Mario Kart.