Creative nonfiction by Travis Flatt

A Box Under the Christmas Tree Looks Suspiciously Like a PlayStation 5

A box wrapped in green and red plaid paper, which looks suspiciously like a PlayStation 5, appears under the Christmas tree. Like, almost three feet tall by ten inches wide, this box, not just a console jankily wrapped in paper—the things have a distinctive look, like a science fiction toaster.

At the moment, a PlayStation 5 is impossible to find at Target, Walmart, etc. You can buy one online for almost twice its official price and you’re likely to get scammed. 

For this and other reasons, such as existential guilt that I have better shit to do with my free time (reading, writing, exercising), which is ample after losing my job—our boutique bookstore finally closed last month—I told my wife I didn’t want a PlayStation 5. If I ever get one, I’d wait until they were available in stores and cheaper.

I’m not handy. I don’t own any tools. My wife is, and she’s got a whole, for real toolbox. Today, while she’s at work advising students at the university, I check in her toolbox for measuring tape and don’t find any. I do find a ruler in the drawer of my stepson’s school supplies. 

I Google the exact dimensions of the PlayStation 5 box.

The box under the tree is just a little too short, half an inch, but maybe the measurements I found online aren’t up to date. Maybe this is some kind of new packaging. Second-hand and repackaged by eBay scalpers. For the life of me, I can’t figure out what she’d buy for me that would come in a rectangular box this size. 

I peek through a fold of wrapping paper. I find a loose place where I can just slightly lift and peep in with a flashlight—gently, so as not to rip the paper. The box inside is white. The PlayStation 5 box is white. I accidentally tear the paper, just the tiniest bit, trying to catch a glimpse of the logo or any writing, so I quit.

When my wife comes home from work, she sets immediately to cooking dinner. I’m a miserable cook. She dislikes anything I make and isn’t polite about it. She’s the kind of honest that doesn’t smile and eat shitty food. She wanted to go to cooking school but couldn’t afford it. She can bake difficult things like sticky toffee pudding and did so when my mom asked last Christmas. 

I follow her around the kitchen, wanting to ask her about the mystery box, and worry she’ll notice I tampered with it. I can think of nothing but the box and seem distracted until she finally asks me what’s up? 

I break down and ask. 

(By the way, I’ve already called my mom to tell that I suspect my wife bought me a PlayStation 5. My mom says that sounds like something only my wife would do. She means that as a compliment.) 

I confess everything—the measuring, the peeking.

Well, I try to, anyway; she cuts me off at the “tearing the wrapping paper” part and tells me it’s a pasta maker. 

I start crying. Feel helpless. Mortified. 

Besides books, which I normally buy for myself, I haven’t asked for anything for Christmas in years. We’re poor. Not miserably so, just fine. I don’t enjoy shopping or spending money. 

She says it’s okay to want things. 

When we go to, say, Target or TJ Maxx, and my wife just goofs around and browses things while I stand silently—like a dick—and think, “junk,” ruining the whole normal American thing for her.

I lie, promise I’m alright, that a pasta maker sounds fun, and we talk about cooking pasta, our mutual love of pasta, the time we’ll spend together, how I’ll learn something (improve my cooking; just improve at something), but I’m half talking and half listening. I’m entirely hoping she’s lying, that it is a PlayStation 5 and this has been subterfuge, that somewhere there’s a PlayStation 5 hiding—in her closet, in the attic, in her office, somewhere.