The Great Nintendo Conquest

I wanted to wait a little while to talk about this, to let things settle in a bit before I made any attempt at expressing myself, because telling a story is never that easy when you really want to do it right, and it gets a lot harder when your story is about waiting in line at a Target in Saugus at five o'clock in the morning to be one of the blessed souls to whom the fine people at Nintendo will entrust a "Wii" entertainment system.

My brother and I were number 54 in a group of 60.

The story really starts around seven pm Saturday night, when Rachael and I got back to my house in Wakefield and watched Elf in it's entirety on cable television before meeting Zach and Sarah, making a brief pitstop at the Bridge's household, then going to Salem. Once we were in Salem, Zach and Sarah shared a gallon of red wine and Rachael and I had a few Heineken's while we watched Lucky Number Slevin, which was actually pretty cool, believe it or not. Rachael dropped me off in Wakefield around 2:30 in the morning, and I went in the house, put on pyjamas, and drank a glass of eggnog.

So that should set the tone. That's the end of the first part of the story. To recap:
Rachael, Home, Movie #1, Zach & Sarah, Mr. Bridges, Wine, Heineken, Salem, Movie #2, Home, PJs, Eggnog.

Now I can start the second part of the story. I lay down and fall asleep for maybe fifteen minutes, then I hear my brother wake up. We go downstairs together, and we go to amazon.com, where we intend to spend the next couple of hours refreshing the order page, because, Matt's guessing, The Holy Wii is going to be released online at 3:00 EST (midnight PST). This, of course, doesn't happen, and so I put on a pot of coffee (which I immediately forget about) and tell my brother I'm going back to bed.

Since we can't get the thing on amazon, we're going to have to go to Target. So I get to sleep until like 5:00 am, then we leave.

I take some coffee with me, but I think I totally screwed up the bean-to-water ratio, and it tastes horrible.

Now if anyone ever wanted to have a nerd genocide, what they would do is make up a really kick ass video game and release it at Targets and wal-Marts across the nation, then about an hour before the slated release date, they'd just gas the line. I was actually worried that this might actually happen for awhile. There was a street cleaning device circling the parking lot that looked highly suspect.

The nerds looked like junkies. My brother and I really didn't fit in. I should clarify something- my brother's a nerd, yes, but he's a very tolerable and likeable nerd- and all in all, he'sno nerdier than I am, it's just that I'm a nerd with books and music, and he's a nerd with video games. His interest in video games has the same depth and understanding that my interest in books and music does. Does that make sense? And the kid reads too, he's not... he's just not like the rest of them.

These kids in line look desperate. Matt looks a little tired, maybe excited, just a bit, but nowhere near desperate. One guy in front of me is in line waiting to buy one for his twenty seven year old son, who is himself waiting in line at another store. A pack of smaller kids wait with their mothers behind us. The kids all have diamond earrings and call their respective mothers "Ma."

We call our mother "Mama" (MUM-ah). "Ma," before the age of twenty five is totally unacceptable if you're living north of the Mason-Dixon line. A Northern "Ma" is senile.

(NB: Rachael switches between variations on "Mom." This is also acceptable. When the maternal figure in question is directly addressed, it's often "Mum," as in, "Mum, I told you I'd be back late, I'll clean the bathroom tomorrow." "Mom" is more frequently used by the male members of the household.)

Anyway, one of these little bastards tried to cut my brother in line. Before we even got out of the car to stand in this line, I reiterated several times over that if we did not leave this sad place with a Nintendo Wii (I still don't even know how to pronounce that), we would leave with our dignity.

We were leaving with whatever dignity we could muster.

That being said, I still wanted to throttle this little son of a bitch, or maybe just rip one of his earrings out and tell "Ma" to save her two hundred and fifty bucks for a plane ticket to England, where the whole family could learn the definition and purpose of a cue.

My brother stepped up and said "Excuse me, I think my brother and I were behind him." before I had a chance to shed blood.

They finally hand out the tickets, and we get to wait in our car for another hour until the store opens. I turn on the radio and we listen to the latest news from Iraq, seagulls start to grow in numbers as the smell of fried food drifts across the street from Kelly's. The sun's coming up, but the sky is so grey that nothing really changes, and no one notices when the streetlights go off.

They let us in the store and I'm waiting in line again, reading a David Sedaris book for awhile, but I start getting dizzy, so I just stand there until our number is called, Matt forks over three hundred and fourteen dollars for the system and a game called "Medal Of Honor."

When I get home, it feels like christmas, and I'm six years old.

- - - -

So that's the story of how The McDonald Brothers got their hands on a Nintendo Wii on the release date. To celebrate my triumph, Rachael and I went out to a nice restaurant and ate shrimp scampi last night. Kelly's felt really far away. I don't think Rachael was celebrating much of anything (except maybe a free meal), but had I voiced the fact that I was celebrating the Great Nintendo/Target Conquest Of November, 2006, she would have called me a dork, one thing would have led to another, and there would have been tears.

Now it's almost Thanksgiving, and I have to pack up some clothes for the long weekend at home. Zach's death-wagon is on it's way.

Just another freak in the freak kingdom.