A cousin gets Guitar Hero III for his Wii for Christmas, but now all the assorted aunts and uncles are over, so the video games go away and out comes the Wii Sports. "Is this that Wii thing?" asks Aunt Mary as Uncle Jay expertly knocks one down the fairway. I slice into a bunker. Bowling comes out and Uncle Walt needs only a little bit of convincing to try it; he bowls a spare in his very first frame.
My favorite cousin: Nine, absurdly precocious, currently obsessed with Alvin and the Chipmunks. She breaks from singing Chipmunk songs in her head briefly, just long enough to dig out from under the tree a Nintendo DS and games, Catz, Dogz, Cooking Mama, to show me. "It's pink!" she says, unnecessarily. I have the white one, I say. "You have the Nintendo DS? That means you have the heart of a child, just like me."
Four members of our family, four Rock Band controllers. Coincidence? Mom goes from never having played a guitar game before to playing one or two Medium songs on bass in the span of one single night. My brother and I alternate singing and drums. Dad gets more confident and keeps stepping up to Medium lead guitar parts. We finally try Highway Star and somehow manage to clear it. I take bass and Mom sings "Should I Stay Or Should I Go" and gets a 100% score. The next morning, I'm in the other room and can hear Mom and Dad talking strategy for next time, and I realize that everything we've ever said about this game is true.
