doahleigh - Holy Waste of Teabags!

Earlier this year, when rumors of the Nintendo Wii first hit, I told Brad I’d be happy to buy him one for Christmas. Months went by and the Wii’s reputation grew. This thing was going to be pretty damn cool!

He’s been looking forward to November 19 (the release date) for a long time, and I’ve been excited for him. So we went out last night to try to snatch one up at midnight, thinking that we had a pretty good chance. We tried Meijer first since they’re open 24 hours, and right away we saw a short line near the toy section. It wasn’t very threatening though, so we walked around the store for half an hour before joining the line. Right away some woman looks down at where we were sitting on the floor and condescendingly says, “Do you know they only have eight? And there are eight people in line? And we all already have bracelets?”

Bracelets? This was more serious than we imagined. It was then that we noticed everyone else was sitting in chairs; chairs that were marked Wii #1 through Wii #8. Yeah, this was going to be harder than we thought. We decided to wait it out, ya never know when someone’s card might get declined, and as number nine in line, we could totally cash in on their misfortune. However, a few minutes after we were herded like cattle over to the toy department’s cash register, I looked at Brad and said, “I don’t know if I want to be part of this group.” One guy had waited since 7:00 the day before; others were there nearly as long. They were all throwing around gaming vocabulary and trying to outdo each other with how cool they were for being one of the elite eight.

Brad agreed, so we left. We drove by a few other stores, many of which didn’t open until the next morning, but which nonetheless had lines of bundled-up people waiting out front. We rolled down the window at Circuit City to get the scoop: they had 13 Wiis and opened at 10am. There were only a few people in line at the time, but I guess they were all willing to spend the night in a dark, cold parking lot in the name of the Wii.

We, on the other hand, laughed to ourselves and drove away. We crawled into a warm bed and fell asleep. Brad woke up early in the morning to eat cereal, which is a strange habit of his, and decided since he was up anyway, he may as well try for a Wii. He headed down to Circuit City at around 7 and managed to be 11th in line! I came an hour later and actually stood in the cold for 30 minutes with the same people I had mocked only hours earlier. But at 8:00 we were handed a voucher good for one Wii. All we had to do was come back before noon to pick it up and pay. Oh yeah, and fight the crowds for an extra controller and maybe a game too.

I never thought I’d be one to wait in line for anything, especially after mocking so many others for doing it.. And I definitely never thought I’d lose sleep in order to do so. And I especially never thought I’d be willing to endure such obnoxious human behavior, let alone be a part of it, just to spend money on the material manifestation of some overblown craze. But I did. Not to the extent that many others were willing to go—we did the minimum required to get our hands on a game system—but I still did something I don’t think I’d ever be willing to do for myself. I did it for my boy.

Merry Christmas baby!