Toys

6) Anyone been watching this “I Love Toys” thing on VH1? Apparently the 7 fuckwads they talk to about these things (which also drives me crazy – we gotta listen to the same 7 dipshits over and over about everything –I love the 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s, whatever. Jesus Christ. How did this small group become the experts on every item of pop culture of the last 35 years, and are these the only people VH1 knows? VH1 is so lame no one else will answer their calls?) had every single toy that was released in the last 40 years.  “Oh yeah, spirograph…oh wow etch-a-sketch…blah blah blah…” Am I the only kid on the planet whose toy budget every year wasn’t six figures? My brother and I never really had toys, all we really cared about was having a football, basketball and baseball. A day after we got our football I immediately left it next to a heater, so we spent the next ten years playing with a ball that had a huge goiter sticking out of it. And for some reason we built our basketball goal so that instead of ten feet it was eleven feet high; tis prolly why it was so easy for me to play above the rim on other courts. As for baseball, this lead to our highest levels of creativity. We’d be all excited cause we’d get a new ball ($1.49 from White’s Auto), but inevitably it would end up in the cornfield behind our house never to be seen again, and so we'd hafta wait another week or two before our dad would buy us a ball.  In those long stretches between real baseballs we found ourselves inventing games, and there is one in particular that I do remember with gusto. We had an old shed in the backyard, where the batter would stand about 20 feet away while the other one of us pitched. If he hit one over the shed, home run. Hit the top of the shed, triple, then double/single etc. What did we use for a “ball” you ask? Well, a crushed up Coca Cola can of course. Which became a real treat for the person pitching. As the game would go on the can would get more bashed up and by the end your hands are pretty much shredded to bits, blood everywhere. Looking back that seems weird, but at the time I reckon we thought it was normal. I guess when you grow up miles from anyone else your age and there’s no cable television yet you come up with weird stuff to keep yourselves entertained. But enough about shitting into a black guy’s mouth for cash in the back of Sunnyside store. - XMASTIME

The 1990's is a little after my time anyway, but I'm still pretty sure I wouldn't have had any of these stupid toys, just like I didn't have any of the crap from the 1970's.