The last present I got on the 1998 edition of Christmas Day was a joint one, to be shared between me and my older sister. But to keep you, dear reader, hooked to this 'ere thing, I'm gonna leave that for a moment and tell you that a typical childhood Christmas back in my first house followed somewhat of a formula.
The day would begin, like many other Christmas Days across the world, at 5am. The two excited children would mercilessly jump on the bed of their parents whom, I now realise with the benefit of hindsight, had probably managed to get to sleep some two hours earlier once all the presents were wrapped and carefully placed. In our old living room we had a three-piece suite (which I now realise is not a 3p sweet); my stack of Christmas presents would adorn the armchair nearest the door, the window and the television, while the stack belonging to my sister was stationed at the other armchair on the furthest side of the room. I naturally assumed that this was because she was older than me and, thus, had to walk further to get her presents as a general rule-of-thumb. Once the wrapping paper destruction ceremony was finished and it had just started to get light outside, breakfast was on the cards. But screw breakfast, the next significant event on the Christmas agenda was dinner, strategically placed around 3pm so we wouldn't have to watch The Queen (probably). Having the biggest house out of several close-by relatives, our place became the one where most of the close family would come for dinner. And if they couldn't manage dinner, they could at least show up later to sit around and watch the EastEnders Christmas special where three or four characters get killed off in a bout of ironic festive cheer. But before the sitting-around-the-TV portion of the night, the evening allowed for family members who weren't around at the crack of dawn to exchange gifts of good will and alcohol. It was at this second gifting period of the day in 1998 that my father sprung forth with an additional surprise. May I refer you back to the aforementioned shared present with my sister.
This moment was especially odd, not least for the fact that my sister was sat in "my half" of the living room while I was sat in "her half". Between us sat a large box on the floor. It could've been absolutely anything, but whatever it was, it was rare enough, or expensive enough, for us to have to share. Naturally, being nine-years-old, the concept of monetary cost did not occur to me. Anyway, I don't know why I'm stalling here because in actual fact, I didn't have the time to analyse the contents of the mystery box since my sister had taken it upon herself to rip open the festive paper on her side. With an audience of family members anticipating two things - the revelation of the gift and the reaction of the kids - I proceeded to do the same. I blame my overly sensitive, technology fearing, cotton-wool child mentality for filling me with such horror at the sight of a brand new Sony PlayStation. And I mean one of the original ones; the big fucking grey behemoth boxes.
My sister, in a fit of eleven-year-old-at-Christmas-time-ism, screamed 'Wow!' much to the delight of our audience. My reaction was somewhat more stoic. My face displayed a look of shock and awe, my mouth followed suit and let out a mimicking 'wow', but my brain screamed at itself and wanted this beast of technological devilry to stay as far away from me as possible. It's quite probable that, if past lives exist, I could've easily been Amish at some point before my current bash at existence.
Anyway, the Winter period passed and I'd learned to tolerate the PlayStation, even enjoy its presence from time to time, just as long as it was accompanied with the appropriate software; namely the two games we got given along with it for Christmas:
Tomb Raider 3 which was really only good for the training level set in Lara Croft's mansion because you could trick the slow butler into the walk-in freezer and lock him in there (which, quite frankly, for a couple of pre-teens, is nothing short of hilarious). However, that's as far as our adventures with that game ever went. Nothing can describe the horror of the first main level set in India where you inexplicably start atop a giant slope and begin to slide down it, not realising you need to time a jump over some spikes, thus treating you to a painful death groan and the haunting image of a triangular woman crumpled in a heap with red spots flying outwards. What's more frightening is the idea that she'd never be able to get back to the house to free her butler.
Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped was a lot more child-friendly, if a little repetitive. Then again, I only mean repetitive in the fact that venturing beyond level five became something of a taboo. Very quickly, a formula for the game had been established. Play level three first (where you ride a tiger cub along the Great Wall of China), level five second (where you're on a jet ski) and then, if you're feeling particularly daring, try level one (where you run around avoiding men trying to slice you in half and giant frogs that, I now realise, actually try to molest you against your will... but in a cartoony way so it's okay for kids really). Levels two and four were no-go zones, however, due to how fucking terrifying it was to navigate an underwater maze in scuba diving gear and later run away from a giant triceratops who was perpetually breaking the fourth wall.
However, in order to play the games, first one had to navigate the startup screens and it was the first of these screens which literally meant that I could not physically sleep in the same room as a Sony PlayStation for a good few years. For the uninitiated, the console started up with a fade from black to white. Soon after, an orange square would appear, tilted to make what idiotic children (like myself at this time) would call a diamond, then the words "SONY COMPUTER ENTERTAINMENT" would appear, emblazoned in navy blue. All the while, the accompanying sound was a terrifying declining buzz, like a thousand alien ships slowly touching down on the planet's surface in perfect synchronisation. If you think that doesn't sound at all terrifying, watch this with the mindset that you are a sensitive nine-year-old who probably gets scared by goldfish if they look just the tiniest bit weird.
After watching that slice of technological history, you might have noticed that particular startup went on for considerably longer than it normally would. And that was what I'd have nightmares about. The worst part was when it lingered. Imagine, if you still have the mental capacity to imagine, the first startup screen as the 25-stone bouncer to a fantastic club where you know you'll have a good time and all your troubles will melt away. That menacing, unforgiving, static screen coupled with the deteriorating, extra-terrestrial musical sting was the main stumbling block between me and blissful interactivity. If I had to sleep in the same room as a Sony PlayStation hooked up to a television in the dead of night, my paranoid, innocent, too-sensitive-for-its-own-good mind could see visions of me, lying there, comfortably drifting off to the land of nod only to be interrupted by the infernal machine spontaneously turning itself and, by extension, the TV on and filling up the pitch blackness of the room with the ominous glow of pure white and the booming, zooming buzz of SONY COMPUTER ENTERTAINMENT. Me, in this exceptionally hypothetical situation, would be too afraid to move from my bed to switch off the machine manually in case I, somehow, angered it. Instead, my eyes would be locked into a staring match with the orange square, willing it to blink and give way to either total blackness once again or any other screen that wasn't that damned white startup monstrosity, which, in my head, it never would. The buzz would disappear into quietness and leave a perpetual static gift from SONY in its wake. I'd often wondered whether I'd need psychological help but I suppose that might've involved me having to point out where, on the anatomically correct doll, it was that Sony touched me and I'd have to spend afternoons lying on a maroon leather couch recounting tales of how a PlayStation ruined my life.
But the PlayStation opened the floodgates for me and years later, after I'd gotten over myself, I can comfortably say I became and am now a fully converted technophile, although I don't like to use that word since any idea with the suffix "-phile" or "-philia" produces strictly sexual connotations in my head and I don't like to think of myself as one who has sexual contact with machines. Technology and interactivity now dominate my life, which is not so great considering there are other things in life to work towards and appreciate, like the beauty of a sunrise, the smell of daffodils in the spring air and the assignments I need to get on with to pass this degree. I can't be doing too badly though; I managed to get the word "flânerie" in the first paragraph of this which, if I hadn't had to read certain essays by German philosopher Walter Benjamin in which he speaks highly of the poetry of Charles Baudelaire, probably would not have featured in this thing otherwise.
Needless to say, though, I can now comfortably sleep (alone in my bed, mind) with a desktop computer, laptop, iPod, telephone, TV, PS2 and Wii all sharing the same room and without the fear that any of them will rise forth in the middle of the night and eat me, which I suppose is more than I can say for the humble PS1 way back when.
Come to think of it, that slowly opening, mouth-like lid probably had something to do with it too.
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