The Mighty Wii

I almost forgot about the most enlightening/demeaning part of the Fourth. As the night wound down, when we should have been slipping into our fireworks and food comas, Joey pulled out the Wii fit.

I've been hearing about this nifty, albeit odd, exercise contraption since they bought it a few months ago. I'm not a big fan of video games -- I don't mind them, I just don't like to play them -- but I am intrigued by all the capabilities and features of the Wii. Which was what led me to step on the spaceship-like Wii board and place my health in its non-existent hands.

The good news? I'm just barely above underweight. The bad news? Everything else. After I painfully and slowly completed the first balance test, I was haughtily inquired of by the avatar: "Wow, do you find yourself tripping a lot when you walk?"

You know, little fake person whose sole role is to live in a computer and judge others, I do have trouble walking, but at least I can walk.

I wish I could say it only got better, but no, Snooty McAvatar didn't stop there. It then went on to calculate my Wii Age -- whatever the hell that is, it didn't actually define it or give you some idea of where they are coming from, which I have a problem with, but anyway -- which is, drum roll please, 50!

50!

Nothing against 50 year olds, but I'm 25. Unless my Wii age comes with the benefits of an AARP membership and the knowledge that I can retire in 15 years, I'm not too thrilled about this. It also means that when I actually do hit 50 my balance will be so off I won't be able to stand upright.

As if not demoralized enough, I then attempted the step program. Oh no. Rhythm is apparently a key ingredient to Wii Aerobics and I've known for years I just don't have it. Notice the clenched right fist? I was contemplating punching all the little perfectly synchronized Miis.


The Perfect Child then steps up to the mat and proceeds to step and kick his way through the Step and Advanced Step programs. (He likes Advanced Step best because "he likes to kick.") Bastard.

The Perfect Child's girlfriend then takes her turn and steps, swivels, and dodges her way to high score after high score.

In the meantime I sit on the couch and deplore the completely unjust distribution of rhythm, athletic ability, and, apparently, the capability to walk without tripping, in my family. Whereas the brother excels at soccer, tennis, baseball, football, basketball, and Monopoly, I run into things and trip over my own feet. (To go even further on the subject of gene pool distribution, I have panic attacks in the middle of the night while he can count on one hand the number of times he has felt stressed. And let's not get started on which one studied to the point of sickness to pull A's while the other barely had to glance at a book to get theirs.)

Forget the Wii, I'm going to stick with walking in the evenings, which, as it turns out, is a difficult enough task for me.