Winifred Has Better Guitar Hero III Scores Than I Do

Winifred and I went to a dinner party tonight and the between food that's made for dipping and caseroles made for scooping a massive Wii tournament was held in which five ladies and their respective parents picked up a plastic guitar and attempted to dominate the rock and roll world via Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock.

I've refrained from releasing my inner rock legend since the game came out because I'm not very good at Dance Dance Revolution, don't like the way the songs are presented, and don't like embarassing myself. (Only, you know, on the internet!) I'm also morally opposed to this game because the developers of the series (which had been making my skin crawl long before Legends' release) didn't contribute to this game (they made Rock Band instead). I like to postulate and say things like, "Real guitarists don't play well anyway," and "It's not like playing a real guitar," and, "I've heard the songs, they're all watered down representations!"
I really do believe the last two arguments but the truth is, for me, it's about humiliation.

I kept telling Winifred, no, you don't have to! It's okay! But no, she was having a good time, and no amount of anxious projection would keep her away from her Rock God Glory, and there she stood, performing--no wailing--Foghat's "Slow Ride."
Foghat! Did you know? Winifred adores Barry Mainlow. She was wearing a winter-themed sweater. She sings "Sunshine and Lollipops" at whim and hates it when I criticize family movies for being so freakin' happy. You know Captain, you shouldn't be so critical, she'll say nicely.

Sunshine and Lollipops found her groove, so to speak, in a Foghat song.
I made it through 21% of Social Distortion's "Story of My Life" which I found was significantly easier than the other songs in The First Level ("Starting Out Small"), like, you know, Foghat. After that 21% I missed a bunch of notes and was booed off the stage.
Oh. Winifred made it through 22% of "Slooow Ride." I'm guessing she's not taking a ride with Foghat, but she's marginally more likely to do that than I am to share much of anything with Social D.

The other parents and a few of the fellow youth performed just as well, except for one 14 year old, who picked up the axe for "the first time" and slaughtered the astronomically high scores established by a real band who borrowed the game a few weeks ago (and beat the game in a few hours, actually).
"I might be better, you know, if you let me learn guitar in middle school," I joked at one point to Winifred, who, in addition to never getting me a puppy, never let me take lessons. She nodded and said something about how I "was really good" but it probably wouldn't help anyway.

...So not only did she beat me. But she wouldn't shoulder the burden of publicly tanking my reputation.


(I'm just kidding. She was so cute playing the game. I'm proud of Winifred for being so much cooler than I am. Admittedly, it's not hard.)