RE: Trailer Trash 50 pt F (Patreon)

When they got to the very tail end of their presents, Tabitha distributed the ones that were from her—a little wrapped ball for each of them she delivered with a mischievous smile and a toss. More than anything Joshua was confused when he caught his—because the little thing was too small, and too light. There was no way a Tamagotchi would fit in here, even if it was already opened. It was almost as if—Joshua unwrapped the ball, revealing that it was in fact, just a capsule toy like you could get from the vending machines at the front of Food Lion.

Joshua’s heart fell at the sight.

Inside the clear plastic ball it was plain to see that there was just some folded slip of paper. Almost like the little fortunes you could get from fortune cookies. The weight of disappointment completely crushed his hopes at getting something cool from Tabitha. Surely she wasn’t this out of touch with what real kids actually wanted, right? Was this some gift idea that some girly teen fashion magazine brainwashed her into thinking deep and meaningful?! What even was it, a poem for Christmas, or something? It was as bad as getting a Christmas card from the grown ups without even any money in it.

Perhaps worst of all, this had happened before! Last Easter, grandma Laurie had taken them to an easter egg hunt one of the local churches was hosting. Half of the eggs didn’t even have M & M’s or jellybeans in them—they had Bible verses, written on folded slips of paper. Just like this. Joshua watched as Aiden tried and failed to get his capsule open with his fingernails, a problem Joshua shared. The things were hard to get open.

“It’s just a piece of paper,” Aiden gave up on prying it open and sent a look towards Tabitha that was somewhere between a scoff and a smirk.

“I… can’t even open it,” Joshua admitted with a grimacing smile. I’m not sure I even want to?

“Are they hard to get open?” Tabitha asked with an expectant look. “Here—I can get it for you.”

Nicholas had already managed to get his open and was holding the slip of paper up to read it with a frown, and with a frustrated sound and a pop Samuel opened his as well. With a sheepish grin Joshua handed his capsule to Tabitha, while Aiden had already lost interest— the brother set his capsule aside unopened and turned his attention back towards the Batman figure in front of him.

Can Tabitha even get it with her one hand in a cast? Joshua wondered.

Rather than picking at the plastic lid with her fingernails or trying to twist it off, Tabitha took the vending machine ball in her good hand and squeezed it. When the mouth of the little container deformed in the strength of her grip the lid popped off on its own, and Tabitha promptly passed the open toy capsule back to Joshua. He then dug the slip inside out with his fingertip and was just about to see what it said—when Nicholas bolted upright from his sitting position on the couch and then made a beeline for the bathroom.

“Hah,” Aiden laughed. “When you gotta go, you gotta go!”

Smiling and shaking his head, Joshua finally unfolded the slip to read:

Merry Christmas Joshua! Your REAL present is next to the TV in grandma’s room.

My REAL present? Joshua felt a surge of excitement replace the disappointment and he looked back towards Tabitha in disbelief. This wasn’t it?!

She beamed an especially beautiful smile at him and nodded her head in the direction of the back hallway.

Still stupidly holding the paper slip in both hands as if it would personally lead him, Joshua struggled to his feet and stepped over the strewn mess of crumpled gift paper that had surrounded him. Samuel had already dropped off of the sofa and into a crouch and was scooping aside the trash pile of his own that had collected at his feet—Joshua watched with a sense of urgency as Sam reached beneath the sofa and pulled out another wrapped box that had been hidden there. One whose Christmas wrapping paper didn’t match any of the familiar ones the Moores used!

“What the—” Aiden exclaimed at seeing Samuel pull a present out of nowhere. “No fair! Where’d that come from?!”

“Aww, Aiden,” Joshua could hear the playful pout in Tabitha’s voice as he dashed down the back hallway. “You didn’t open your Christmas present from me!”

She went and hid our REAL presents! Joshua thought with a grin.

He caught a fleeting glimpse of Nicholas tearing open a present through the open bathroom door as he passed by, but there was no time to stop and see. The apartment wasn’t that big, and he thundered into grandma Laurie’s room in the back and all but scrambled for the TV where the four brothers usually played Nintendo 64. There it was—a box-shaped present for him, nestled in just beside the television set.

When he grabbed it up it was heavier than expected, so it shouldn’t be a VHS tape, or even an action figure. Action figures didn’t weigh all that much themselves, and most of their packaging was always a clear plastic bubble that was mostly empty air. Eager fingers found the taped seam at the end and he tore and ripped the wrapping apart, to reveal—

“No way,” Joshua’s eyes went wide and he felt his chest seize with tension at the sheer disbelief of it all.

The picture on the box in his hand depicted a lime-green Gameboy Color. She’d gotten them a Gameboy Color. This was a brand new Gameboy Color. Gameboy. Color.

It’s a GAMEBOY COLOR, Joshua reiterated in his mind, so thrilled he could almost burst. SHE GOT US A FRIGGIN’ GAMEBOY COLOR!!!

“Guys!” Joshua couldn’t help but shout. “Guys, Guys!!”

He hugged the beloved box against his chest so that there was absolutely no chance he would accidentally drop or damage it, scampering back down the hall. His thoughts were whirling, because an entire new game system was way way way better than the Tamagotchi he had been expecting. With this, they wouldn’t be forced to share just one Nintendo 64 between the four of them anymore! Some of them could play the N64, while some could play the Gameboy! Sure, there was always still gonna be someone left out, but this way at least—

“Ohmigod,” Nicholas blurted out, stepping out of the bathroom.

His brother looked shell-shocked, he was holding up his own box, and when Joshua laid eyes on it he was stunned into silence as well. Another Gameboy Color, the one Nicholas cradled in his hands being blue instead of green. They each froze as they stared at each other’s boxes in astonishment, because it wasn’t even believable. Was this some sort of prank? The boxes looked real, and it had a certain heft to it that indicated the contents inside were genuine. Tabitha buying them Gameboys, plural, was crazy, though—it felt like for a moment all of Joshua’s thought processes had short-circuited and reason and logic had just jumped out the window.

Is this—is this real?! Joshua was too flabbergasted to speak.

Technically speaking, although they all shared the Nintendo 64, it wasn’t even theirs. It was their dad’s. With two Gameboys they could—they could—he couldn’t even imagine it. Max in his second-grade class had brought his Gameboy to school and instantly attracted the full awe and jealousy of every single kid there! Mrs. Cunningham had to temporarily confiscate it because it stole the attention of the entire classroom! An entire handheld video game system, that could fit in the palm of your hands!

Alternating between too numb to speak and too blown away not to scream and shout in triumph, Joshua followed Nicholas as he hurried out to the living room to show everyone. Before they could even reveal the huge surprise though, both of them staggered to a stop at the sight of Samuel holding his own Gameboy Color box—this one was red!

“Oh my God oh my God oh my God!!” Joshua blurted out.

“Aiden, hurry!” Tabitha teased. “Or, everyone’ll have one but you!”

Having never looked more alarmed in his entire life, Aiden darted past them in a panic now with a tiny slip of paper in his hand—late in the hunt for his own present.

“What’s all this?” Mr. Moore asked with a faintly disapproving look. “What’d you boys get?”

“We got—we got Gameboy Colors?” Samuel breathed out, obviously just as incredulous as Joshua and Nicholas were.

“One for each of you, so that you won’t have to share,” Tabitha revealed with a proud smile.

“That’s… a bit much,” Mr. Moore frowned.

“I put in batteries for you guys, and I also put a game cartridge in each one,” Tabitha continued as if she hadn’t heard her father. “Samuel and Aiden have Pokemon Red, Nicholas and Joshua have Pokemon Blue. There’s two link cables, so that you’ll be able to battle against each other and trade Pokemon.”

“Well, my word,” Grandma Laurie shook her head with a smile.

“Grandma—I bought a big pack of double-A batteries for them, it’s still half full,” Tabitha said. “In a few days or however long it takes, you make sure that replacement batteries are only for boys who’ve been on their best behavior.”

“We got Pokemon?!” Nicholas exclaimed, quickly flipping the Gameboy Color box around so that he could untab the closure and open it.

“Isn’t all that expensive?” Mrs. Moore fretted, looking back and forth across the boys.

“Guys—guys!?” Aiden jolted out of the back hallway, holding a fourth box—this one depicting a yellow Gameboy Color.

“They won’t actually have real color like they should,” Tabitha sighed. “We’ll see about that in the future. Couldn’t quite afford to get you all Pokemon Yellow, but ‘Licia, ‘Lena and I should each have that one, and then you boys’ll have Red and Blue, and that way we’ll be able to trade across the versions and actually collect every single Pokemon. I’m so excited to be able to play with you guys!”

“Tabitha—” Joshua already wanted to cry as the realization really dawned on him.

These weren’t presents from a vague and probably not real entity like Santa Claus. They obviously weren’t from their parents, and grandma Laurie looked just as surprised to see the appearance of four Gameboy Colors. Aunt Shannon’s confusion and uncle Alan’s pursed lips also told him that they hadn’t bought these. These were completely from Tabitha. It was one thing to know these were the presents Tabby had gotten them, and then another to really realize it.

“Seems like a bit much,” Mr. Moore said in a careful tone, as if choosing his words so as not to sound too critical while in front of everyone.

Joshua immediately hugged the box even more tightly against himself, as if that stupid adult might convince them to take it away from him.

“Couldn’t they have, y’know, just gotten one and then shared it between them?”

“They’ve done that with everything their whole lives,” Tabitha countered in a calm voice. “This time, for once they won’t have to.”

It’s mine, like ACTUALLY mine, Joshua felt floored all over again. I won’t have to share it. I won’t even have to SHOW THEM. It’s just for me. This, right here. Is MY Gameboy.

The entire concept was so astonishing that he felt his eyes water as he admired the package depicting the Gameboy. Growing up in extreme close proximity with three other brothers always wound up making all of the toys communal property. Sure, each of them had gotten ‘their own’ figures and stuff for Christmas, but that tended to just mean they got to play with it first. Sole possession of stuff like that might linger on for a week or two at the very most, before it all simply became everyone’s toys.

But now, this gorgeous lime green Gameboy Color was his. His, and his alone. He could write his name on it in permanent marker. The file on the game could have his name typed into it with the selector. Instead of all of them being stuck with whatever goofy thing the kid who happened to be holding the controller put in, before anyone could stop him. This was all his. A Pokemon game, even—he could catch his own pocket monsters that would be all his, while knowing his brothers were off doing the same with their own monsters.

None of them would bug him for it. He wouldn’t have to wait his turn to use it. His brothers wouldn’t even envy him or covet the device or try to steal it from him, because each of them had their own! It was brand new, and was a game he’d always longed for after seeing the commercials on TV and all the kids at school who collected the Pokemon cards. Maybe he would get lucky and find a super awesome monster like a Charizard! The giant flame dragon thing. Or, a cool spooky evil ghost one like a Gengar. The boys caught the cartoon show every now and then, but none of them had any cards and none of them had ever dared to imagine they would get the games for themselves like this.

“So… did I do good?” Tabitha asked, actually sounding a little nervous. “Do you like them?”

“Good?!” Samuel exclaimed.

“This is the best present I’ve ever gotten in my entire life,” Joshua told her. “The best ever!”

“Whoooaa…” Nicholas had managed to unbox his and held up the actual game system in his hands.

A light blue one, pristine and perfect in every way, the dark blue Pokemon game already slotted into the back. Nicholas turned it on, and as one all of the boys crashed into each other, crowding in close in an attempt to see the screen. A pixel GAMEBOY logo swam across the screen in a vivid rainbow of colors, little speakers sounding out with the coin sound they remembered from Mario. A few developer logos went by, and then the Pokemon music played—each of them were glued to the spot as they watched an animated cinematic of a Gengar fighting a Jigglypuff. No one even dared to breathe, they were so mesmerized.

“Ohmigod ohmigod—”

“So freakin’ cool!”

“Is Red the same as Blue?!”

“So cool. Awesome.”

“Holy crap. Holy crap. Holy—”

“This is so amazinggg—”

“Hit enter. I mean, press A—”

“Go open your own!”

“Oh yeah! Hah, duh.”

“We each have our own Gameboys!!”

“Boys, boys,” Grandma Laurie chided them. “I think your cousin deserves some thank yous and maybe a big hug?”

/// Think there might be one more section to actually end off Chap 50 on, and then gonna do some writing in to help fill in the connective tissue between sections. Before that gonna switch over to AnimeCon writing for a bit though, been super eager to jump back into that.