The Stars and the Cookie Jar

We have a Wii.

N decided to get herself one as a congratulatory present, but we called around town and called around town and there weren't any (apparently they're popular! Who knew?!) At dinner with friends tonight, our friend S mentioned that she and her wife had obtained the elusive Wii at a Target.

So we trundled off to Target. And there were no Wiis in the case. The case was Wiiless.

However, the security guard and the electronics clerk were carefully reviewing the contents of a Wii box at the electronics desk. They were just re-boxing it when I said, "Um, do you have any more Wiis?" (Seriously. Why did they name it that? Does its plural take tenement photographs? Does it muckrake?)

"Have this one," the clerk said. And we said, "Okay!"

"Let me just go look at the games really quick," said darthrami. So we ducked back down the aisle -- leaving the Wii, our Wii, alone and exposed on the counter, and the clerk wandering away, as they do.

There in the aisle, a little girl was scuff-kicking against the empty Wii case while her mother whispered in best please-don't-do-this-to-me-it's-9PM mode, "They're all out, honey."

"Buh. Buh, buh. BUH I WANNIT!"

"We'll get you one of these ones," the mother said, scooching her sniffling juvenile over to the X-Box display just a few inches onward.

"I don't, I don't, I dun WANT one of THOSE ONES!"

"Honey," I urged N, who was faffling among the different games and controllers, "Let's go buy the thing." I wanted to say, I'll take you to Best Buy to get games! I'll take you to the moon! But if that Momzilla comes out of the aisle and sees the Wii on the counter, it won't be your Wii anymore!

After a blithe, dazzled moment, darthrami followed me out of the aisle and said happily, "Okay! Look, I grabbed an extra contro--"

"That's nice, baby, let's buy the thinger!"

Momzilla and "I WANT A WII!" stayed in the aisle, and the clerk rang us out and quickly, quickly triple-bagged our new gaming system, lest we be attacked by half the browsers in the store.

...And now there is a brain in our TV, and it wants me to bowl with it.