The Happiness Detector
A wholesome, traditional Christmas story to warm hearts and minds
A divorced couple and their ex-in-laws sat around a fake Christmas tree in a four-bedroom suburban house gazing at presents like they were boulders wedged in an avalanche chute. A fire crackled bright at the edge of the room. Three children bounced from gift to gift, faces gleaming under the canned lights of a low-hanging ceiling.
“Is it time yet? Are we ready? Pleeease, dad. Pleeease.”
Ben stoked the fire, wiggled his fingers and prepared to fetch the crumpled-up wrapping paper as soon as it came off the presents. Grandma Dawn and Grandpa Casey leaned back on the couch, pleased to be visiting, but feeling odd — this was the first time they’d ever visited their ex-son-in-law’s house.
“Should we say the prayer?” said Ben’s ex-wife, Lauren.
A prayer, whispered Ben, for the presents?
Ben stood up and latched hands with his two sons, who latched hands with Grandpa Casey and Grandma Dawn, who latched hands with Grandma Emily and Grandpa Paul, who finished off the circle with Lauren and Elise. A wannabe pastor of sorts, Grandpa Casey had a passion for leading prayer sort of like he was living out a lost dream. His blessings were lengthy, detailed and touched on as many subjects as possible in a minute-long whirl. Starvation. Safe roads. Education. The president. War. Ben looked at his twelve-year-old son, Koby, who rolled his eyes. Neither said amen. Ben in particular was unwilling to sacrifice personal integrity for participatory kindness. The divorce still stung.
After blessing the presents, the kids tore into their minor gifts. CDs, football cards, socks, underwear, books, gift cards, etc., etc. The room crackled with adolescent energy. Dopamine censors along their frontal lobes pulsated like neutron stars. The kids scurried from one gaudy Christmas present to the next. Lauren prodded the kids to say thank you. “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” they responded, unsure where their words had landed. Only the present mattered. And the presents. Past gifts are an illusion. Future gifts a theoretical construct. Keep ripping. Keep tearing through boxes.
Ben stuffed armfuls of wrapping paper and bows in the fire. The Zen of Christmas presents washed over him like champagne. He shut the fireplace door. His wool sleeve got caught on one of the hinges. Fuck. His favorite sweater began to unravel. A piece of thread hung from the brass corner. Ben caught a glimpse of his own reflection in the fireplace door. Deep cracks on his forehead. Red eyelids. Hair parted awkwardly. Two-day stubble that peppered his face like thorns on barberry shrub.
Ben hadn’t enjoyed a single Christmas for the last five years. Not one. The divorce had flipped the holiday on its head, redefined it. Christmas used to be a time to laugh, eat, drink, relax, enjoy the lights, play games. Now it felt chore on top of a task on top of duty. A plate of gold flakes turned into a pile of shit. Ben was pulled in ten directions at once. The inviter. The entertainer. The launderer. The griller. The glass pourer. The butcher. The baker. The God damn candlestick maker. He’d reversed roles. Reversed the reverse of roles. Been fully domesticated, which might sound like cosmic justice, if you were his ex-in-laws, and cosmic justice was real.
“Ben,” said Lauren, patting him on the back. “Koby is talking to you. Can he open his big present?”
Big present. Always gotta be a big present. Ben panned to his mother, Grandma Emily. She’d flown in from back east. Her husband, Ben’s stepfather, had passed away only a year ago. Grandma Emily cried at the hint of any reminder of his death. Arthritis plagued her bones. Depression clouded mind. But she still wanted to take photos, document the look on each of the kids’ faces, post them to Facebook, show that her life held meaning, that she was doing okay, that Christmas was still something special.
Koby tore into his major present, the unmistakable white box with the Apple logo. The gift he’d dreamed of for months, a gift so big that it checked off both Christmas and birthday. A MacBook Pro with a 13-inch monitor. Koby was a technology kid, a full-blown technophile who loved screen time like a cat loves tuna or a bee craves its hive. He scampered over to Lauren, hugged her. He plodded over to Ben, patted him on the knee. The moment was lukewarm but genuine and suggested a truth that rarely goes away — we are half satisfied, half in the dark, half able to grasp that others feel the same.
Next kid up. Fourteen-year-old Sam with two mid-level presents that equaled a big present. Because Christmas must be equitable, each kid knew the calculation, knew the cost, and could recite the numbers like a used car salesman waiting for his commission check. Sam tore into mid-level present #1. Lebron 200 Max basketball shoes. Hell yea. And mid-level present #2. An authentic Patrick Mahomes jersey. Cha-jing. Both items fit well. No surprises. Because to surprise another person is an inferior form of gift giving, off-putting even, possibly insulting. We want our consumables made the same way every time. We want that all-beef patty, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onion on a sesame seed bun delivered to our mouth just as we had imagined.
Fifteen-year-old Elaine’s turn. She shook her present. Some clanking, a bit of knocking. Objects that rolled, bumped into each other. A good sign. Hopeful. Suggestive of exactly what she asked for. The mixed media art set with pastels, colored pencils, charcoal, easel, mats. Eureka! Everything was there. Top of the line, a million colors. Textures galore. Points of all sizes, the highest quality graphite, oil paint, acrylic, you name it, the whole enchilada.
“Mom, you didn’t have to.”
“It’s from Ben, too,” said Lauren.
Elaine was silent.
Ben looked down, watched the cat chew on a ribbon. Elaine’s reaction pained him. She was the kid who took the divorce hardest, thought Ben was the one to blame. Got it in her head that he was lazy, didn’t make enough money, didn’t try as hard as he could. Plus, he wasn’t her biological father, wasn’t even her stepfather now. So who was he? No one really. A past tense figure, a shadowy part of her past, hardly there, next to nothing in terms of influence. Except he was the person who introduced Elaine to art.
“Ouch,” said Ben, shaking his hand.
“What happened?” asked Lauren.
“A sliver…from the wood.”
Ben placed a log in the fire. His inner voice was loud. Decisive. More verbal than usual. Almost there, it said. Christmas is almost in the bag. Except for one problem. Emotional exhaustion doesn’t just leave. It lingers like tooth decay or frost on a tomato plant. Infuses the future with its degrative essence. The rejection from his stepdaughter still tasted bitter. The rejection from everyone. Never being able live up to expectations. Not with Lauren. Not with any of the ex-in-laws. Not even with his own mother. His missteps would never end. He was inconsiderate. Unresponsive. Forgetting to do the little things. Saying too little. Saying too much. Ben could never win.
Oh well, at least he didn’t screw up the holiday entirely. The kids were smiling. The ex-in-laws didn’t seem overly put off by spending the evening at his house. The venison chili wasn’t half bad. He didn’t have to make an extended trip to his room for some down time. Ben’s stress level was high, not panic level. Only a few more presents to go. The adult gifts up next. And though it felt weird to open gifts in front of the ex-in-laws, time to man up, soldier on, press on through the powdery trail of presents drug through the snow.
Ben handed each adult a box. One by one, they went around the room.
“Oh, from the kids,” said Lauren, handing wrapping paper to Ben, as she lifted the tea cup with a metal basket and loose leaf teas from its box.
“I love it.”
She liked it.
Grandpa Paul was next. A camping saw from Lauren and the kids. “Thank you, I really like it.”
He kind of liked it.
Grandma Emily opened her candle, also from “the kids.”
“Oh, thank you, I love it.”
She didn’t love it at all. She already owns a million candles she doesn’t use.
Finally, Grandpa Casey and Grandma Dawn. A joint gift. A popcorn maker. “Oh, that’s great. We’ll use it a ton.”
It wasn’t great at all. They’ll likely use it once or twice, then stick in storage, pull it out when Lauren and the kids visit.
Ben turned to his own present. A square box wrapped in black and red paper. No return names. It just said Ben. Since he had already opened presents from his own mother, obviously, the gift had come from Lauren and the kids.
“I’m intrigued,” he said.
He wasn’t intrigued.
“Open it, Dad!” said Koby, who tore off a piece of tape.
“Is this from you?”
Koby looked at Lauren.
“No, it’s not from us,” she said. “Your present’s at the house. We figured you could open it in the morning.”
Ben wasn’t buying it.
“It’s heavy,” he said, placing the present on his lap. He peeled the paper away and surveyed the red box with white lettering labeled: THE HAPPINESS DETECTOR.
“Is this some kind of suggestion?” he asked.
Grandma Dawn chuckled.
Ben lifted the cover off the box. A gold machine nestled deep inside a bed of Styrofoam. A line of lights along its face. A digital readout panel. Accessories. Headset. Wires connected to a pair of metal bracelets. Three antennae-like pieces that needed to be screwed into the back. A roll of paper. Instructions.
“What is it, Dad?” asked Sam.
Ben ran his finger over the instructions. “Says here that it detects happiness…and perceived happiness.”
“I wanna try,” said Koby.
“Let Dad read the instructions first,” said Lauren.
“Looks like a damn router,” said Grandpa Casey.
Ben plugged The Happiness Detector into the wall, placed the straps around Koby’s wrists and put the headset on. “Let’s find out if my little son really did like his Christmas presents.” He turned a blue dial on the face of the machine.
The Happiness Detector started to hum like it was playing a CD. Strobe lights blinked in and out. A hologram of a rainbow hovered over the device. Koby’s eyes were droopy. His shoulders relaxed. A minute later, the strobe lights disappeared. A status report followed.
“Happiness quotient forthcoming,” said The Happiness Detector.
“It talks?” said Grandpa Paul.
“Must have Suri or Alexa or something?” said Gramma Dawn.
“Nope,” said The Happiness Detector.
Grandpa Paul’s religious hackles stood taut. Being prone to superstition, he tended to see the world through signs and symbols. Divine revelation could be anywhere. Evil lurking around every corner. Was the machine a harbinger of bad things to come?
A printout of Koby’s numbers spewed from the machine.
“Perceived happiness: 8, Actual Happiness: 4, Meaning: 3,” said The Happiness Detector.
“Is this on a scale of ten?” asked Ben.
“Yep,” replied The Happiness Detector.
Gramma Emily gave Koby a sharp look. “You’d expect his happiness numbers to be higher on Christmas.”
“The numbers represent long-term happiness,” responded The Happiness Detector. “It’s not about being grateful.”
“Oh,” said Gramma Emily.
“What?” said Lauren. “How did the machine know to say that? And what do these numbers really mean?”
“It means your son is not as happy as he thinks he is, nor is his life imbued with all that much meaning. But don’t worry,” said The Happiness Detector, “it’s pretty common, especially for children. We are often unaware about our own predicament. Not to mention, he’s a computer kid, which doesn’t help things. He needs some real-life experience.”
The device seemed strangely deep, philosophical even.
Lauren shot Ben a sharp look. “Where did you get this?”
“Where did you get it?”
“I wanna try,” said Sam.
Ben attached the wires to Sam. He turned the starter knob. The machine rumbled. A beep. A grind. A low base kick drum. A new hologram. A turtle dancing on top of a fruit cake. Sam’s expression softened.
“Happiness quotient forthcoming,” said The Happiness Detector. “Perceived happiness: 4. Actual happiness: 3. Meaning: 2.”
“Now, why would Sam’s numbers be so low?” asked Lauren.
“You’re the parents. You tell me,” replied the machine. “What’s going on with him at school, with his friends? What are his goals, his ambitions?”
“I’m sorry,” said Lauren, feeling like the machine was a tad aggressive.
“I’m being bullied at school,” said Sam.
“You are?” said Gramma Dawn.
Sam nodded.
“That’ll make your numbers go down,” said The Happiness Detector, “particularly if there is no clear route to resolution.”
“I thought you were a happiness detector, not a self-help machine,” snapped Lauren.
The Happiness Detector chuckled. “A fair point. The branding on me isn’t quite right.”
Grandpa Paul stood up. “Who branded you, The Grinch?”
“Come on, Gramps,” replied The Happiness Detector.
“If you don’t shut this thing down, I’m leaving,” replied Grandpa Paul.
“But you drove over with me,” said Lauren.
“I’ll just stand outside, then.”
“One more kid to go,” said The Happiness Detector, “then onto the adults!”
Grandpa Paul stood quietly at the door while Ben hooked Elaine up to the machine. Lights flashed. The sound of rain. Sleet tapping on a skylight. The pouring of liquid. Sloshing. A slight pause. The Happiness Detector sounded like it was churning butter.
“Happiness quotient forthcoming,” said the device.
Elaine studied her numbers. Perceived happiness: 6. Actual happiness: 4. Meaning: 7. “Does this mean I’m not happy?”
“Pretty much,” said The Happiness Detector.
Christmas had taken a decidedly dark turn.
“Really?” said Ben, to The Happiness Detector. “Is this really what you want to say right now?”
The Happiness Detector turned purple like it was contemplating. “Well, I should probably add that it’s common for a person’s perceived and actual happiness levels to be out of whack.”
“And how would you know, you’re not a person?” chimed Grandpa Paul.
“Only if you define persons in terms of their genetic code,” responded The Happiness Detector.
“Chippy little bastard,” said Grandpa Casey.
“And smart,” said Koby.
“Moving on,” said Gramma Dawn.
“At least my meaning number is a little higher,” said Elaine.
Lauren nodded. “Yes, your meaning number seems pretty good. I wonder why that is? How can my daughter be unhappy but…?”
“Ever heard of Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning?” interrupted The Happiness Detector.
“No.”
The Happiness Detector seemed impatient. “Well, basically, when one sees a purpose for one’s life, or a reason for the struggles, meaning goes up.”
“I want to be an artist,” said Elaine.
“Could be it,” said The Happiness Detector, “particularly if doing art is connected to your pain.”
Elaine looked at Ben.
Grandpa Paul placed his hand on the door knob. “Somehow this doesn’t seem very Christmas-like.”
“Dad, just relax. Come sit back down.”
“Is someone’s happiness meter on low?” said The Happiness Detector.
“Jesus,” said Lauren, “is that sarcasm?”
“Can we please not use the Lord’s name in vain,” said Gramma Dawn.
The kids chuckled.
Christmas was officially very, VERY awkward.
Grandpa Casey looked at Ben. “Gimme that thing.” Ben handed him the unit. Grandpa Casey hooked himself up to the machine, turned the dial and leaned back on the couch. “I don’t feel anything,” he said, eyelids heavy, voice trailing off. “I don’t feel…any…thing.”
Grandpa Casey had fallen sound asleep and was awoken only by:
“Happiness quotient forthcoming.”
Grandpa Casey examined his numbers. They were similar to the younger kids. His perceived happiness was higher than his actual happiness. His meaning numbers were especially low, which made his face grow red.
“This thing is a sham,” he said. “I go to church twice a week. Now, how can that not be purposeful? Huh, Happiness Detector? Huh?”
The Happiness Detector bit its tongue, but in the back of its mind pictured the TV Evangelist, Jerry Falwell Jr., whelping away about forgiveness for sin.
Again the kids chuckled.
Grandpa Casey passed the device to Lauren, who fully expected her happiness numbers to be low. She, too, was suffering from the effects of her divorce from Ben, along with a job at a law firm that was emotionally taxing. The Happiness Detector started to compute. Lauren leaned back on the reclining chair. Colors of blue, red and yellow displayed on the ceiling. A butterfly pattern. Light African drum beats. The machine took longer than usual. Lauren’s brain went numb.
“Happiness quotient forthcoming,” announced The Happiness Detector.
Lauren examined her numbers. She was surprised. Perceived happiness: 6. Actual happiness: 8. Meaning: 7. Interestingly, another number appeared for her, Relative Happiness: 9.
“Relative to what?” she asked.
“Relative to your past,” replied The Happiness Detector. “Or, to be more specific, several points in your past. Think of a simple line graph with peaks and valleys. Relative happiness looks at your entire past, averages it out and compares it to the present.”
Lauren took the headset off. Images of childhood rushed in. Years of sexual abuse by an uncle. Counseling. Divorce. Not just with Ben, but with two other men. One was a partner in her firm, a man she’d shared everything with, until she realized he was cheating. Lauren’s health deteriorated shortly thereafter. Peptic ulcers. Heart murmurs. A car accident when she turned the wrong direction on a one-way street.
“Wow,” said Lauren.
“Yes, wow, indeed,” responded The Happiness Detector. “You’re the happiest person in the room with a solid amount of meaning to boot.” The Happiness Detector’s lights turned steel blue. It’s LED lips puckered. “You’re probably wondering how I could know all this.”
Lauren nodded.
“Memories,” said The Happiness Detector, “lodged in our grey matter, our hippocampus, neocortex and amygdala to be more precise. When paired with the neuroelectric impulses of the present, a lot of information can be gleaned.”
“Can you be a little more pedantic,” said Grandma Dawn, “and vague?”
“Actually, I can,” responded The Happiness Detector, lights half-cocked. “It boils down to Appearance versus Reality. I’m talking, Plato’s Republic here, the Allegory of the Cave. Chains. Fire. Shadows on the wall. A world of subjective impressions. There are many ways we can be deluded. And grasping our own delusions can change everything. Ev-ree-thing,” annunciated The Happiness Detector.
Lauren squeezed her eyelids shut.
Grandma Emily was next. She placed the headset on. Given the death of her husband, she expected to register low on all counts. Surprisingly, not so. While her perceived and actual happiness numbers were low, her meaning quotient was a solid 8.
“But I’ve felt so empty after the loss of Tom,” she said.
“Such is the nature of the perception,” responded The Happiness Detector.
“Self-righteous, ain’t he?” said Grandpa Casey
“What do you mean, Mr. Happiness Detector?” asked Ben.
“Call me Mx.,” said the machine, invoking the gender-neutral honorific. “What I mean is that loss can heighten our perceptions. Those prior acts of a deceased person can take on greater meaning, cause one to look at one’s life differently. Emotional significance is enhanced. You feel more.”
Grandpa Emily started crying. “How did you know?”
Others grew misty.
Grandpa Paul, whose hand now clutched the door knob, wondered if the Lord was drawing close. Yet when it was his turn to use the device, he declined, as did Grandma Dawn, who stated that she did not want to know her actual happiness numbers.
The machine’s lights blinked slowly. “Fair enough,” said The Happiness Detector. “Not everyone is ready for this level of transparency…not everyone is ready to leave the cave.”
Ben attached wires to his wrist and wondered if he was ready. Ready for mistakes in perception, for the possibility that Lauren’s life was better than his. Ben had always supposed that Lauren was miserable, that the divorce pained her in the worst of ways. She was the Type-A personality after all. Ordered. Duty driven. Wound tighter than a root ball. Surely, losing full-time custody of the kids could not have been part of the plan. Surely, her dependence on Ben’s eccentricities as a co-parent did not jibe with her reasons for wanting a divorce in the first place.
And let’s not forget about the sex. Five straight years of post-marital sex. Sometimes weekly. Sometimes daily. Often on Ben’s whims. Which surely tipped the power scales in his favor, right? Because a man doesn’t need meaning to experience sensual pleasure, doesn’t need feelings of attachment or love. No, feelings are in the realm of the woman. That’s how they’re wired. That’s what society has told us is the case.
But wait a minute.
Ben was the high school English teacher and aspiring writer. He was the one who cried during movies and felt uncomfortable in social situations. Lauren, on the other hand, was a master of small talk, skilled at participating in the social contract. Though sensitive in many respects, she was the logical one. The trained lawyer. The survivor’s survivor. Unshakable. Tougher than a vine. As such, sex might mean something different to her. She might prioritize values differently. The casual exchanges might fit her needs just fine. Lauren might be the one who is really in control.
The Happiness Detector started to shake.
Pine needles fell from the tree.
Ben’s grip on reality weakened.
The narrative he’d used to survive divorce felt shaky, insecure, like a massive Lego castle about to crash to the ground, break into pieces. Everything was called into question. Even his own writing, which he’d always viewed as a clear indicator of his life’s meaning. Prior to the divorce, Ben’s prose was flaccid, sentences littered with clichés. After divorce, he learned to craft stories with greater immediacy and durability, words chipped from obsidian, sentences flint knapped by force of the soul.
A gust of wind kicked up.
Snow blew in from under the door.
The mood in the room changed. Ben’s breathing grew shallow. Eyes sunk in. The kids knew this look on their father’s face. Lauren knew it too. It was the look of fear, trepidation, the acknowledgment of long-term consequences, battening down the hatches for the possibility of change. The totality of their divorce was upon them. The intersection of past, present and future about to lock hands in the center of the room.
“Happiness quotient forthcoming,” said the machine, now humming like a digeridoo.
One by one, numbers displayed on the motherboard. Dull in color, two-dimensional at first, the numbers transformed into a million tiny spheres that floated in front of the Christmas tree, then the advent calendar, the coffee table. Blue and white light particles were everywhere. Reflections. Memories broken down into their constituent parts. As if he was standing at an entrance watching a twenty-year fog lift, Ben looked at his happiness numbers closely, eyes wide open, mouth agape.
Suddenly, a knock on the door.
Ben’s head ratcheted to the sound.
“Should I open it?” asked Grandpa Paul, hand tightening on the knob.
“No,” said Lauren. “Don’t open it.”
