Your story about your wife is almost exactly like mine except I bought an Airport Express first, she rolled her eyes and now won't travel without it. Amazingly, she's even "impressed" with Airtunes. To her, technology is just a tool and there's nothing fun about it.
The first time she took the Airport Express out of town, I walked her through the set up: plug the ethernet cable into the AP and data port; plug the AP into the wall; open the iBook. She said, "that's it?" I smiled to myself and said "yuppers." About a minute later we were video conferencing.
How Airport Express Saved My Marriage