No one appreciates the voice of reason

In typical post-Christmas fashion, the kids have gleefully been spending all their free time on the Wii these days. Their favorite game at the moment is Super Smash Brothers Brawl, which (as might be inferred from the title) is a fighting game. In fact, the only possible point of this game (again, which should be inferred from the title) is to have your character beat up on the characters of the other people you're playing with.

Naturally, then, the only sounds I hear from the living room are obnoxious fighting sound effects, shouts of "DUDE!" and "STOP IT!"...and my favorite, tears (from the girl). Without fail, Erin laments every time she plays that "EVERYONE IS BEATING UP ON ME BECAUSE THEY SAY I'M AN EASY TARGET!!!"--but refuses to either suck it up or leave the game until I've had enough of the shouts and tears and send her out of the room. Tonight was a particularly hard-fought (and hard-lost) battle, or at least I assumed as much from the screaming. After realizing that I will never be able to concentrate on the fractions and decimals my students will need to affix to number lines tomorrow with That Kind Of Racket going on in the other room, I once again banned Erin from the front of the house until further notice "cheerfully encouraged" her to find an alternate activity.

"FINE!" she shouted at the boys, stomping off to her room. "When I find my gift card, I'm going to buy a really fun game and not let ANY OF YOU PLAY!" Chris, who received a gift card of the same amount, shrugged. "What kind of game do you think you're going to buy for $10?" Erin wasn't that easily shut down. "I have other money," she insisted. "How much? At least $20?" Chris inquired. Erin scowled. "No, not that much." Chris didn't take his eyes off the screen. "Well then, you can't get a game," he informed her."You're not the boss of me! You can't tell me what I can and can't buy!" Erin yelled at him. Chris was annoyed. "I'm not telling you what to do; I'm telling you that you simply don't have enough money!"

I'm hoping this exchange has made Erin angry enough to swear off video games with "Smash" or "Brawl" in the title. In the meantime, I think Chris has sworn off sisters...