Toys

What do you think of when you hear the word "toys"? Probably the kind that real little kids play with, like blocks or some other kind of quasi-educational or sensory-building type of thing. How about when you get older? You've got your neato action figures, spaceships and cars...all hopefully with a limited amount of small, removable parts, for your parents' peace of mind. When you get older still, you get a bike, maybe a remote control car or something like that. See where this is going? Basically, as you go on, the toys get bigger, more complicated, more electronic, and definitely more expensive! Your parents stop buying your toys at some point, and you gain employment for the purpose of achieving your long-awaited and well-deserved independence.

Oh, come on...give me a break here.

You know why you got that first job. For the same reason you get an education to have a career and get the best possible job you can, and every possibly better job thereafter:

To be able to buy your own toys! The best you can get your hands on!

Now, I know we're not really materialistic by nature. Deep down, we're all cavemen, and we just want to survive. But being thinking human beings hungry for knowledge and fun (and being as we've been progressively brainwashed by Corporate World in the last couple centuries), we just gotta have our toys.

Why do we "just gotta have our toys"? Interesting question. There's a little saying that goes "He who has the most toys wins", or something like that. Some people seem to think that as long as we own the biggest, most expensive things, that somehow we're better than everybody else. Luckily, I don't believe most people think like that. But, we still like to have our "things". I think most people just like to be able to have Life's Little Rewards for the hard work we do. I know I'm that way. I work my butt off, and if I choose to reward myself occasionally with something, be it extravagant or not, I deserve it! But even so, we drift away from the main point of this blog entry, which is, quite simply, "toys".

Most of the things we treat ourselves to in life we may consider toys, in the sense that they're things for adults to "play with", like an mp3 player, or a fancy remote control for your TV, or even a TV! These are our "big boy toys". Even new cars and motorcycles are referred to as "toys"! But what about our toys for the little kid still inside all of us? Tell me, honestly, that you don't have at least one thing stored away somewhere, or maybe even out in the open, displayed in a place of honor, that reminds you of the days when we were young, and all that mattered in the world was to play. "Want to come out and play?" "Go outside and play with your friends." "I can't wait to get home from school and play!" Brings back good memories, doesn't it?

Some guy may have an old Hot Wheels car, or a woman may still have her old Barbie. Hell, even collectors can't hide the fact that these superhero action figures they horde in their original containers are, deep down, just reminders of the toys we played with when we were kids. Some of those people may be holding on to those memories just a little too tightly, but hey...to each their own, right?

Anyway, to bring my personal experience into light:

I still have baseball cards, and they remind me of trading them back and forth with the other kids in school, putting them into the spokes of my bike, and of playing in Little League. I don't have the same cards I had when I was younger, and the ones I have now hold a certain amount of monetary value...but I have them, and they remind me.

A few years ago, I bought a Coleco Head-To-Head Baseball electronic hand-held game, exactly like the one I used to own in junior high. Compared to the video games of today, hand-held or otherwise, this thing couldn't get any more archaic in every one of its features, but I think of playing it in the hallway with a girl I knew, who I was in band with, and also played D&D with. I developed a huge crush on her, but even though she was part of our little gaming group, she was still part of the popular crowd as well, so I always saw her as being out of my league. This game even makes me think of another hand-held I used to own, a space game, and I played that one all the time with a little pest named Kyle, who ended up moving away. I don't play that Coleco game hardly at all now; in fact, I think I've only turned it on a mere handful of times since I've owned it...but I have it, and it reminds me.

I have my Rubik puzzle collection, with all sorts of different puzzles in all sorts of shapes, sizes and difficulties. They remind me of walking the halls between classes and showing off the fact that I could solve the Rubik's Cube to my classmates. Sure, I learned it out of a book, but at the time, I was pretty much the only one who did it, and I felt a sense of accomplishment that I wasn't able to get from playing on one of the sports teams or anything like that. I wasn't a jock, and I certainly wasn't one of the popular crowd, but I loved the experience of high school. All those puzzles are on a shelf in my home, and I don't mess with them nearly as much as I used to...but I have them, and they remind me.

Lastly, I have a stuffed rabbit that Mom bought for me on my first day of Kindergarten. The poor thing has been through the wringer and back again during these nearly four decades, but it's followed me through many events and changes in my life, and I wouldn't give it up for anything. I still have it, and not only does it remind me of the love of my mother, it reminds me that no matter what may happen in our lives as adults, we should never lose the child inside us.

That, my friends, is why we gotta have our toys. Not to be childish, but instead child-like. Not to sit the highest on our pile of toys and be king of the mountain, but instead to hold close to us the few toys we own and be grounded in who we are and where we came from.

So get out that toy and look at it for a long time. Remember. Forget about your bills, your car repairs, your job, gas prices, war, terrorists...just for a little while. Enjoy yourself. Be happy. Go buy yourself a new toy, even if it is just a plastic light-up Star Wars Jedi Lightsaber spoon you dig out of a box of cereal (I got the red one, by the way).

Now, quit reading and go outside and play, will ya?