My husband doesn't play video games. He gets upset when I monopolize the big screen TV with hours of first-person shooting. He doesn't understand how I can possibly gain such spiritual bliss from levelling up my Mysticism skill, or why I really, truly needed to Catch Them All.

My husband doesn't play video games. He does, however, play Super Mario Galaxy. In fact we play it together, because some genius at Nintendo realized that my marriage was at stake, and wanted to help. Super Mario Galaxy includes a co-op multiplayer mode, in which one player -- the gamer, if you will -- controls Mario, and the other player -- the widower -- controls essentially everything else.

The key thing that makes this work is that there is nothing, absolutely nothing that the second player can do to actually hurt the first player. My other half has a blast waving the Wiimote around and shooting gay-ass rainbow wonder stars at bad guys, I have a blast because, you know, Mario, and everyone's happy except the divorce lawyers.

Also I had to smile when I heard Dex squeal with joy: "OMG! He turned into a bee!"

Yes, dear, yes he did. You heard it here first: the family that games together stays together. Thank you, Nintendo. Thank you.