A warning to new parents: Once you allow the video game virus to enter your house, it will never, ever leave. In fact, it will become the main focus of your household, from dad to the youngest child, for the rest of your days.

If you are a non-vidiot, like me, you will never understand the fascination of interacting with imaginary characters on a TV screen.

My husband became infected by the video game virus as early as Pong. Remember Pong? Picture a tiny white square bouncing around a black screen and two white lines that you could manipulate to simulate a ping pong game. That was exciting (you should hear sarcasm here).

We married in 1981 and my first child was born in 1983. My husband bought his first computer, a TI-99, while I was still in the hospital and I have been fighting the video virus ever since.

Everyone is so worried about the H1N1 virus, but 99% of the time, H1N1 eventually goes away if you get it. Not so with the video virus. Once you have it, it's chronic.

I know how to safeguard my family from H1N1: Vaccination, hand washings, and lots of Lysol. A vaccination is simply taking a tiny bit of the disease and injecting it into the body. However, once the insidious video virus has entered the body, there is nothing in this world that can eliminate it. It's like Lays Potato Chips - you can't eat just one.

Parents already know that getting kids to wash their hands of video games is like trying to nail Jello to a tree. I, on the other hand, have washed my hands of video games many times, but they keep coming back like a rogue nose hair. They come back in the form of a birthday present from a well-meaning relative or in the form of a download from a friend. Even the school has 'educational games' for them to play on the internet.

I've tried many times to take the games away, so they'll know what sunshine feels like when they grow up. However, my husband always brings them back. As far as he is concerned, it is cruel and unusual punishment to deprive a kid of video games and I am a monster from which the children must be protected.

I complain that they never go outside and run around like kids should. My husband gets them a Wii so they can 'exercise.'

I limit their video game time to the weekends. There is constant squabbling.

"He had ten more minutes than I did!" one cries.

"She won't let me play that game just because I erased her character last time!" another wails.

"I didn't get as much time as everyone else because you made us go to the playground," my youngest whines accusingly.

My husband thinks the obvious solution is to get them their own computers with identical games on each and if all of the children had a hand-held video game, they could take it with us when I forced them to leave the house.

I think we should toss the ones we have in the nearest body of very deep water and so help me, I am not afraid to do it. What forces me to reconsider is this: I am not at all sure that my husband wouldn't mortgage everything we own to replace them.