The Twelve Stages of Not Getting a Wii.

Stage One: Sadness.
"But...But I wanted one so badly, I was so happy to get one today... Zelda!!Zeeelda!!!

Stage Two: Denial.
There has to be one left. The employees are hiding them. Maybe if I look in the back room. Yeah, that's right, I bet that guy who works the TV section is totally stashing them.

Stage Three: Anger.
What?! I've been checking every week and this happens!!! Why are there only 20?!! Stupid Nintendo.

Stage Four: Disdain.
Why should they get one and not me. Psh, I probably wanted one before they knew what a Wii was. Heck, I wanted it when it was called the Revolution. I should throw rocks at them.

Stage Five: Ebay
Let's see, that's $500 plus shipping and handling. That's not too bad.

Stage Six: Forum/blog posting
Does anyone feel my pain?

Stage Seven: Reversion into solitude (i.e. a dark corner in the fetal position)

Stage Eight: Fear.
Wait, what happens if I never get one? What if they run out forever? Surely, the world is a dark place without Nintendo's whim.

Stage Nine: Whining
But...I really need to Wii.

Stage Ten: Admirance
I can't physically touch it, but it looks so cool and pretty. Oooo.

Stage Eleven: Acceptance.
Hey, it's not so bad. Eventually they'll get new shipments, right?

Stage Twelve: Hope.
They last shipped in December, so that means I should have one in February or March. A month and a half isn't that long. I can wait.

Wal*Mart: Killing my soul, always.

Wal*Mart is without exaggeration one of the most evil places I've been to in a long time. Anyone who does not agree is lying, or has not truly seen its true evil. It is the type of evil unlike, say, Star Jones or Satan. This is a palpable evil; an evil that follows you because this is reality. One can not dispute that Wal*Mart is not pleasing to the senses: the psyche-ward white ceiling unrelentingly burning into one's retinas, the headache-inducing pleas for Susan to come to the customer help center, the gnawing cries of children's shattered dreams of having McDonald's for dinner, the vests (oh god, the vests); in general, a swarming cesspool of bad taste. Sure, Wal*Mart's monopoly on low-cost crap is great. But it is worth your sole? Your SANITY? Oh capitalism, you bitch.

. . .This said, I gots me some more jelly for my jelly samiches for $1! Mmm...jelly samiches.

The picture encompasses so much.

Oh Mr. iPod, how I love you so. Reminiscing about all the good times you and I had seems like only yesterday; now your life may be evanescing from your now cold metallic body. Indeed, how cold that steel body is.

Unaware of your immanent fate, I saw that Apple logo of which I have become accustomed to, yet it was not the same. So conveyed to me by you in the way your little iPod soul could, with an error icon-- not just an error icon, an icon of lamentation; it was icon of morose. The dark days of your life had begun.

In a state of panic, I restlessly searched for something to assuage your pain. I, unfortunately, could not. It seems you were not meant to live out a pain-free year of life.

Soon I hope to send you off. Your silicon heart will soon be repaid, or so I hope, back to its convivial vitality of yesteryear. Yet will your, and my, sentiments be repaired so easy?I do hope so.

So when the fateful day comes in which I release you to the obscure box, into this obscure world with the paternal pains of which plauge this situation, I will miss you, iPod. I will miss you earnestly.