The Box

In our house, gift giving (or for that matter, any kind of giving) has never been easy. It was our anniversary a few weeks ago and I bought my wife another iPod nano (it's so thin!) because Apple always seems to come out with new Back-to-School models to help us celebrate. She fake thanked me and then told me to return it because she could barely make out any of the tiny song titles on the screen and still doesn't know how to download music from iTunes. None of this was the least bit surprising.

What was surprising was what she got me. She went into the closet and brought out two gold boxes adorned with thick, black ribbons and even before I opened 'em, I felt badly one-upped, expecially since it wasn't a particularly important anniversary as anniversaries go and I told her as much. She said that I've always bitched about her ambivalence for these kind of things and didn't want me to feel neglected again, which shut me right up. I undid the ribbon on the smaller of the two boxes and inside was a black, distressed leather belt.

"It's fantastic," I said (as I happen to have a thing for leather belts), and I put it on and it was a size too small because I was a pre-diet size too big.

"If you don't love this," said my wife, handing me the larger box, "I can return it. It was expensive and you should only keep it if you really love it." Under pressure, I gently removed the top of the box and peeled away a few layers of tissue.

"Wow, a scarf," I said, "It's beautiful!" I continued my impression of someone who loves scarves, but my wife wasn't buying it.

"No problem, I'll return it," she said and nonchalantly packed the gifts up (she had already asked the store to hold the same belt in a larger size) and placed them next to the unwanted iPod.

"The gifts of the Magi," I joked and we laughed although neither of us could remember what the couple in the story gave each other. Later that night, I noticed another large, gold box sitting on the dining room table. "What's with the other box? I asked. "Is this for me?"

"Oh, I bought a few things from the same store," she explained, "and I thought I'd save the other gift for some other time."

"Can I open it?" I asked like a little kid on Christmas morning, like somehow there was something amazing in this box that wasn't in the other ones.

"Sure," she said, "if you want."

"How about I'll open it if I could guess what's inside?" I asked. "Is it something I'd like?"

"Maybe."

"Is it something else to wear?"

"No."

"Is it something that will make me smell good?"

"No."

"Is it something I could stick my dick in?"

"Yes," she said, tired of playing this silly game, "it's something you could stick your dick in! Why doncha just open it!"

"Now I don't want to," I said. "We built it up too much." And then I told her that this would make a good little story one day called "The Box." The couple in this story celebrate their anniversary each year by playing an eternal guessing game and we never find out what's inside of the box. The O'Henry twist comes in real life when we discover that I'm what's inside of it.