Video Games. Is there anything they can't do?

So a friend sent me his Sega Saturn in the mail last week, and as I'm opening the box, I get a strange sense of deja vu. Strange, because the very thing I'm doing -- gleefully opening a large and ponderous and rather highly anticipated package sent all the way across the country to little old me, seems so foreign -- and yet familiar -- like a dream I'm trying to recollect and understand even though I've been awakened from it just a moment earlier. Even the otherwise nondescript cardboard box, lying on the floor in front of me, looks familiar.

As it turns out, my acute sense of "already seen" was completely warranted. The box that lay before me was the exact same box used to ship the exact same Saturn across the exact same country during the exact same time of year to the exact same person waiting with the exact same sense of measured restlessness, four years ago. The box even had its old mailing label, made out to me, affixed to what is now an inner flap!

So the Saturn and I are reunited, once again. I don't mean to get all gushy over a console (well, maybe getting a little gushy is pretty darn cool), but it really is nice that this wonderful pastime of mine can evoke such a strong sense of bittersweet, reflective nostalgia. Vive la gaming!