Thursday, December 23, 2010

My Greatest Christmas (An oldie from the archives)

I wrote this story on my old Myspace blog a while back, thought it would be appropriate to post this time of the year, holidays and all. 
It's called "My Greatest Christmas".
Sorry for copping out and not posting an actual update, I WILL SOON,  I fucking promise, but it's been my lack of motivation that's been holding me back.
Ah, who am I kidding, I'm lazy.
Anyway, fuck me, I suck, but please read this, it's a good read , if I might say so myself, and look out for something new very soon. I swear to my friend Alex's gigantic balls, I will update soon.
Now, without further ado,  I present to you, "My Greatest Christmas".



Must have been 89 or 90, it was so long ago, I can barely remember exactly, I just remember that it was the greatest Video Game gift I've ever received, and probably the best Christmas I've ever had.
I must have been ten or eleven or so.

My aunt saved up and probably borrowed money to buy it for me, This particular gift, It cost like $100 some odd dollars back then and I figured I'd never get it, since she supported seven of us and my uncle's drug habit on top of a car that conked out at least once a month.

I had been asking for this gift hardcore for two years, a few of my pals had one, and I'd hang with them just to get my fill, to satisfy the urge to have it, but it wasn't enough,
I needed my own, but there were bills to pay and kids to feed, not much extra for videogames.

The only videogames we did get were occasional used NES games from Doorae's mall down on West Farms, where we'd risk it and get whatever we thought was cool.
There was no internet back then, only word of mouth, so if a game sucked, you were shit out of luck.
But, if Ralphie from across the hallway had the game, it must have been good.
Otherwise, we blew about $20-$30 bucks on a real piece of shit, either way, that was what we got maybe twice a year, if we were lucky.

I'd mostly get my games by borrowing and trading with friends.
One good thing about being a foster kid and living in the hood, people tend to move a lot.
When you borrow a game and your pal moves away, you got a free game, it almost always worked out in your favor, but, there were times when it totally fucked you over, and you lost a game or two.
A gamble, but sometimes, you got to give it your all with the shitty cards you're dealt, none of that "know when to fold'em" bullshit.

Anyway, Christmas day comes, we used to open gifts at the stroke of midnight on Christmas day, I remember opening a few gifts, mainly action figures, and stocking stuffers from grandma, mostly sweatpants and socks and art supplies and shit.
I'm done unwrapping all the fodder, but my dream gift was nowhere to be seen.

Did they forget?
Did they not care?
What the fuck?
WHERE IS IT??

And MAYBE, just MAYBE, here it is, a rectangular shaped box, with the words "from Santa, To Bryan'" Written on it (my family always writes that shit on gifts).
Is this it?....
What could be inside?
Is it a trick??

I unwrap this gift hesitant, slowly,  like the first time I took a girl’s bra off, nervous, yes, but with a hard on so stiff, I could jack a tank up to change it's tire and not have it bend.

I get the corner wrapping off, from there, I kick the shakes, and just let it rip, there it is, Oh my god....it's a ....it's a FUCKING GAMEBOY,  HOLY SHIT!!!!!!!!!....
Out of excitement, I jumped so High, I almost banged my head on the 8 foot high ceiling, there's photo evidence of this somewhere, I shit you not.
Here I am, I'm screaming "A GAMEBOY, A GAMEBOY" so loud, everyone in the house is all smiles for me, it's like I got the gift of gifts, and all my cousins and my brother knew that this was my moment, I had finally gotten something I wanted in my shitty life, the fact that I lived in the hood, that I was poor, that I was unfortunate,  none of that mattered, at this moment in time, I was a millionaire, I was Richie Rich, I was Golden.
I immediately tossed 4 double A batteries in there and began playing the only game I'd own for a good few months...Tetris.
This was a momentous Occasion.
This was the greatest moment ever in my young life.....

Then, the horror came....
A few months later, I STRONGLY believe my uncle would go on to steal my gameboy from underneath the pile of unmatched socks in my sock drawer and sell my gameboy on the street for $20 to buy drugs.
I had nothing now, my moment.....was at an end, and life had no purpose.
I wished his death so hard that even the devil thought I was being too harsh.
He had to die....
I suffered for a few months, no gameboy, just regular console games to hold me over in the meantime.

Luckily, the god of video games heard my calls, and the next Christmas I got the gameboy core system!

I was back!!!.

Then the horror struck again....and when I slept over my friends house, they switched their broken gameboy for my brand new one..

I still own it to this day, it works, but the screen borders are a bit cut off.
Life sure can suck sometimes.

And this is my story, my Video game Christmas story.

Special Thanks to Titi Loida, without you, I would probably be in jail or dead somewhere.