Tuesday, May 13th, 2008 5:21 PM
Why Wiimote Wiipairs Cost MORE Than A Wiimote
So it's the night of the Super Bowl. A lot of kids are over at my house, and my girlfriend and I are downstairs watching the game on the couch. Right about the time that Eli Manning goes WILDEBEEST on the Patriots and uncorks the greatest play in NFL history, I hear a crash from upstairs. My Wii is upstairs, and so is one person. I'm not going to name any names, but I will say that this kid's name starts with a "J" and ends with an "oseph". Figuring that good ole' Joe simply tripped over his own legs, or the BowFlex or something, I ignore the noise and continue watching the game, because I want to see that replay of Eli stiff-arming like 5 defenders and unleashing the 60-something yard pass that sealed the deal for the Giants. Little do I know of the horrible act Joe has committed.
In all honesty, I'll probably never know what happened upstairs that night. I came upstairs to find one of my Wiimotes in a sad little mess. Here's a re-enacted transcript of what happened when I confronted Joe, since he was the only one upstairs:
Me: Joe, buddy, did you break this?
Joe: Ugh.... n--- nope! Not me!
Me: Joe you were the only one up here when I heard that crash...
Joe: Well see... I was just sitting there... and--- and I looked over, and yeah. It happened.
Me: What happened?
Joe: It broke.
Me: It just broke itself?
Joe: I donno. I guess.
Me: You're a big idiot.
So as you can see, that wasn't productive in the least. Joe never admitted to anything, and I decided I'd call up Nintendo's tech support and see about getting the piece-of-garbage-Wiimote fixed. Unfortunately, I have the attention span of a down syndrome crack baby, so I sorta forgot about it for a while.
I finally remembered about the Wiimote last Sunday, and gave Nintendo a ring. After wading through the automated answering crap, I got to an incredibly nice tech support guy, who was reluctant to inform me that to get my beloved Wiimote repaired, it would cost me only $47.81.
Now I did the math in my head. A new Wiimote is $39.99... so... what gives? It doesn't matter that the remote came with my system when I bought it ON LAUNCH DAY because there's only a 3 month warranty! Awesome. Just awesome. This is what we call customer service, people. And Joe, if you're reading this, I hope your kidney pops.
-Ryan Rigney