On Christmas morning of 1990 around 4 am, I opened every gift addressed to me before any other family members were awake. I arrived before the colossal Christmas tree, which looked dominating next to my grandmother who was snoring violently on the fold-out couch. My eyeballs were the size of dinner plates as I quietly rummaged around for the boxes that said 'To: Timmy.' Whether they were from my parents, my grandmother, or from "Santa", I sat inside the bathroom and tore open every gift like a starved hobo opens a bag of potato chips given to him from a kind passerby.
I remember almost every detail from that Christmas morning except for the premature gifts. The only gift I remember tearing open was an elephant squirt-gun. I remember opening the spout on the elephant's ass, and filling it with water. When I pressed the trigger, the trunk un-coiled, pointed straight, and shot water from its boner-like shaft. Of course I didn't think it looked like a boner at the age of 5. Perhaps if I had received this gift 10 years later, I'd quietly chuckle to myself about the prospect of an elephant trunk boner on a squirt gun. Mature, huh? But on this dreadful Christmas morning, there would be no chuckling about elephant trunk hard-ons, just yelling and screaming.
As you can imagine my parents eventually woke up, came downstairs, looked at me like I had just defecated on the angel, and told me that I had ruined Christmas. Maybe I did, maybe I didn't, but the whole morning I just sat on our lazy-boy recliner watching Ghostbusters, completely un-phased.
My parents badgered me the entire day, like a human yells at a dog who shits on the carpet. But I don't remember yelling back, or even crying for that matter. All I remember is watching them flap their lips, which were about as red as their faces, and shaking their heads like their ears had water in them. But all I could hear was distant voices, like a ghost's whisper. It felt like I was in some sort of impenetrable bubble.
I looked back on this morning years later after having a fight with my parents about grades or speeding tickets, and wished I could be this numb in the face such verbal brutality.
Later that day, after my folks cooled off a bit, our relatives arrived for the Christmas day feast. I think my parents told them to ignore me because if my notoriously annoying aunt didn't talk to me, I would definitely start to feel guilty about raping my presents. Such a pity that she wouldn't ask me if I had a giiiiiiiiiiiiirlfriend yet.
"Yeah, I'm 5 years old and have steady girlfriend Aunt Tabitha. I feel like I need to get an early jump start on having kids, like you did. I'll inject boatloads of sperm into my significant other, and watch her pump out babies like terds before either of us turns 18."
No, there wouldn't be any pestering "giiiirlfriend" questions, but there would be…
"Could you pass the gravy, next to Mr. Openski my presents early.."
I sat there quiet, but boiled like Mt St. Helens on the inside. My private bubble was starting to shred. Or maybe it was my guilty conscience peaking outside because he wanted to see my aunt's forest of neck moles.
We finished eating and headed out to living room, or the crime scene as everyone called it that morning.
"Does Mr. Grumpski man want to open any of our presents?"
For some reason when I was bad my Aunt would add 'ski' to end of any nick name that happened to fit my present mood, like she was trying to 'Polishify' me.
I finally said something.
"Sure…"
"Sure? That's it? Okay then, maybe we won't give it to you Mr. Quietski."
"Yes please.."
"That's more like it. This one is from me, and this one is from your Uncle Joe."
I opened my Aunt's present, but without the same fervor I opened presents in the bathroom with. Opening gifts had lost its lust that morning, and I'll tell you why-- Elephant squirt guns are a hell of a lot cooler than tissues.
"Oh tissues. Thank you."
I said this without any hint of sarcasm whatsoever, but my Aunt accused me anyway. Maybe she knew a five year old wouldn't want tissues in the first place and just assumed I would be disappointed to receive pieces of paper used for snot blowing, or ass wiping for when the toilet paper runs out and you're too lazy to go grab a roll. But who knows.
"Oh tissues? You don't sound very happy with them Mr. Ungratefulski."
I always wondered what she would say if we went skiing.
"Are you going skiing Mr.Skiingski?"
Or what about someone Polish who was going skiing.
"Are you going skiing Mr. Kwiatkowskiski?"
"No Aunt Betty, I like them. I have a cold now and they will be good to have."
"Okay then."
"Here's my gift Timmy boy."
My Uncle Joe wasn't nearly as annoying as his Wife. Plus he always gave me better gifts. But it's not hard to beat a box of snot receptacles.
"Oh cool a Swiss army knife!"
My passion for opening gifts had returned, and I relished tearing off the rest of the Donald Duck wrapping paper. I opened the box, and held the long, oval-like contraption up for everyone to see. Everyone, minus my Aunt, looked joyful that I had finally come out of my bubble to enjoy the Christmas day festivities.
"I'll show you how this fuckin' thing works Timmy boy."
"Joe, don't say the effski."
My Uncle showed me where big knife was amongst the less exciting, yet practical "life saving" devices. It was like I was seeing boobs for the first time. If I was physically capable of getting a boner, I would have turned the television on from across the room. I wanted to scream and punch something I was so fucking happy. But my Aunt put a stop to that. She saw that I was excited beyond explanation, and knew that she must ruin my happiness, because she either wanted to remind me of the present raping, or she was jealous that I liked her husband's gift more than hers. And she did this with only 10 words.
"You can only use this when you're at our house."
Fuck. I was shot down. I hated going to her house. Her dog drooled on me like a football team dumping Gatorade on their coach after a big win. She made me fuckin' clean! Her boys, my cousins, would get to ride around outside on four-wheelers having the time of their lives, while I was stuck inside scrubbing the floors while she watched Northern Exposure. Believe me, I would rather watch an Alaskan fuck a moose than clean her shit and pissed stained floors.
"Betty, come on let the kid have some fuckin' fun. Now he'll never use the damn thing. You know he hates coming over."
My aunt shot my uncle a look so evil it could've drawn blood. She looked around at everyone hoping someone would agree with her demands. She slowly stood up, I'm guessing to make her point, and let out arguably the loudest and longest fart heard since the birth of Christ, which, ironically, was being celebrated on this very day.
She quickly put her right hand over her asshole, and carefully pranced to the bathroom. She would've looked just like a ballerina if her hand wasn't covering her ass. She slammed the bathroom door shut, and shit like she had been holding it since her high school prom. It sounded like a category 6 hurricane, but with farting sounds. Everyone just acted like they couldn't hear the perfect storm just two or three feet away. But it's hard to ignore noises like this when a 5 year old boy is rolling around laughing like he's watching The Jerk and being tickled at the same time.
"Stop laughing" my mother whispered to me.
I heard my aunt flush the toilet, once, twice, three, four, five times before she opened the door. She had the same look that I had just 30 minutes earlier when I was in my bubble. But I imagine this bubble smelled A LOT worse. She walked over to the couch, sat down, and stared at the T.V, which was turned off. She started to cry like a baby with a dirty diaper. Everyone, except me, went over to console her. It was when everyone was massaging her shoulders and telling her everything would be okay, that I noticed about 5 squares of toilet paper stuck to the bottom of her left foot. How much of a big fat fuckin' clichéski can she be?
