Since getting the Wii, I've been spending a lot of fun time in the Virtual Console, downloading and playing old favorites like Zelda, Super Mario Brothers (the original!) and Tecmo Bowl (ahh, the memories.) Last week, Iexpressed excitement over the recent release of Super Mario World, but at the time Catherine's reaction was negative. I discovered last night that my wife, when she said, "I never want to see Super Mario World on our TV, EVER," was not expressing distaste for classic gaming. Rather, like a samurai who has no taste for needless violence after a lifetime of war, she was simply explaining that she wanted no more koopa blood on her hands.

Because holy crap, once I convinced her to play it was obvious she had been down this road a few times before. I didn't even know there was a purple Yoshi, but she had him flying around and spitting fireballs at bosses while I was still trying to get back into the swing of jumping on turtles. "Oh," she said while I scrambled past a few hammer brothers. "No, you want to double back and fly up until you find the vine. There's a secret there." My wife is a Super Mario World shark. It's awesome.

Once, she dodged a roomful of ghosts and flew up into the sky to steal a secret key from a vengeful God, a sort of 16-bit Prometheus. "I think I must have been home sick from school a lot the year this came out," she said obliquely. I think I saw Lakitu weep.