This last week may go down as the greatest week since Kaaryn and I were spliced. This week we took the leap and purchased an Xbox 360 and Rock Band. For those of you unfamiliar with Rock Band, I will explain. Rock Band is a lot like singing Karaoke, but with no cocktails or Japanese business men. To play Rock Band, one takes a toy guitar, which has five button and a strum bar, and presses buttons while strumming the bar. The television then rolls notes at the player who is expected to play said notes on the toy guitar with a look of pain and consternation on their face, but an ineluctable feeling of pride and accomplishment within their souls. There is also a drum set. The drum set has four pads and a bass pedal. Drums work the same way as the guitar with two differences: 1. The drums must be struck and not strummed. 2. Replace the look of pain and consternation with an open mouth and a look of stupor. The false sense of pride and accomplishment remain. To top it all off, Rock Band also includes a mircrophone which one uses to sing to the music and play like a cowbell on occasion. When singing, the software measures one’s timing and pitch, so anything less than a person’s A game, will be met with derision by the virtual fans in the game software. In short, pushing buttons hasn’t imbued ordinary folk with this much sense of power and importance since the advent of the hydrogen bomb. I highly recommend it.

Kaaryn and I have started our own band: 1.21 Jigawatts! Since we are now rock stars, we’ve had to alter our plans for the future just a little bit. I will explain.

First of all, we will have to change Salem’s name to Starlett United-Nations Palmer, both as a satire on our fellow celebrities’ names and to grease the wheels for future diplomatic appointments. Starlett will be followed by the birth of our son, Mount Rushmore, who will be accidentally named by Kaaryn when she gives birth in a drug-induced haze and mistakes our baby for a tiny stone replica of Theodore Roosevelt’s bust. (For more on Kaaryn’s planned drug abuse, see below.)

I will be accepted into a respectable graduate school. However I will drop out within the first semester because my hot temper does not lend itself to the cranky instruction of veteran professors known to me as “the man.” I will burn the educational bridge by doing something legendarily outlandish such as defecating on the dean of students’ desk, or attending church weekly. This, however, will give Kaaryn and I more time to focus on our band and our upcoming gig that will see us banned for life from Branson, Missouri for my controversial onstage remarks about the mayor and “his (expletive) parking tickets.” The free publicity will only serve to further our careers.

Kaaryn, meanwhile, plans to develop a terrible heroin addiction and a hidden love/hate relationship with limes. By the time of the birth of Mount Rushmore she will have entirely lost control of herself and will be arrested for nibbling on our only son after placing him between two large slices of rye bread to make what police and hipsters call a “California Cheeseburger.” We regain custody of Starlett and Rushmore after a short stint in rehab.

Just after rehab, we release our first album: “Flux Capacitating.” “Flux,” as we call it, shoots to #1 thanks in large part to the hit satirical ballad “I love you like I love Fresca.” I, however, begin to fall apart because of my jealously for Kaaryn’s success as a songwriter and her status as band front man and officially file for band breakup the day before we are supposed to play Carnegie Hall. I am granted custody of our children and most of the roadies.

After both of our solo careers go nowhere, we reunited for a failed album entitled “One More Chance to Hate.” The failure of the album marks the death of 1.21 Jigawatts!. Nobody notices. Once we are released from jail after a failed robbery of a high school teacher’s lounge, we each attend Bible college and start nondenominational ministries in separate states. Kaaryn’s church will be named Rock! Of God. And mine will simply and forthrightly be called I Will Preach to You for Money.

And then, in 2009. . .

This photo has nothing to do with Rock Band. We just thought everyone would enjoy it.