I just got my Animated Obi-Wan, completing my set of the first wave of Clone Wars animated figures, and making me a very happy boy indeed. I was actually contemplating taking a trip down to the Snail when I opened my door and found the package waiting — which made me remark, “don’t go to the toy store, make the toy store come to you.”
And that took me back. Waaaaaaaaaayyyyyy back. Reminded me of something that I had completely forgotten about. So now it’s time for another trip into the annals of Matt’s life, à la The Gun Stories only without the violence. Sit back and relax, kids, Daddy’s telling a story…
My suspicion is that this took place in 1984, making me 7 or 8 years old at the time, depending on what side of my birthday it took place on. In fact, I was probably 7, or it was in 1985 and I was 8, because the first thing that needs to be made clear is that this took place nowhere near my birthday, or Christmas. That means it was probably in the first half of the year, although it didn’t occur near Adam and Caitlin’s birthday, either. There was no significant date attached to this event, at all. “This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am about to relate.”
On this day when I was 8 or 9 — or more accurately, on this evening, my family sat down for dinner as usual, but with an exciting pre-dinner pronouncement: my father told us that after dinner, we would go to the toy store. Now, my parents were good to us when we were kids and we would go to K-mart or the Bay or even Toy City every once in a while just for the sake of doing it. (It’s a practice I maintain to this day.) So there wasn’t anything gigantically unusual about going to the toy store that night; maybe I could get a new Star Wars figure (the line was just dying out at that point) or G.I. Joe figure (whose line was just starting up). It would be a $4-and-under affair, certainly.
After dinner, instead of taking us out to the car, my parents brought us up to their bedroom. One of us must have petulantly remarked, “I thought we were going to the toy store!” because my father’s next sentence was what brought me back to this memory in the first place: “we decided to bring the toy store to us tonight.”
And from behind their bed, my parents brought out not a couple of action figures, but two Cabbage Patch Kids for Adam and Caitlin. This was right around the beginning of the Cabbage Patch craze, and it’s entirely possible that my parents had been among the masses who had actually failed to acquire CPK’s for Adam and Caitlin upon their initial release.
I didn’t get a Cabbage Patch Kid. I got this:
Snake fuckin’ Mountain, baby. Who wants some runty-ass plastic baby when you can have Snake Mountain?! In fact, of the many up-price toys I would get throughout my childhood, S.M. falls second only to the U.S.S. Flagg itself for the most amazing toy I ever received. I desperately wish I still had it. I must have put a thousand hours into this thing. The wolf-head thing on the top left is actually a microphone that distorts your voice into the Spooky Snake Mountain Voice, and the rope bridge that Cyclops is standing on is, of course, a booby trap. There were ladders all over the place, a trap door where Skeletor is standing at the top left, the big crazy snake thing… and the scary face on the left side had a moving mouth.
I think that was it. Not exactly loaded with features, I suppose, but I cannot tell you how much I loved this thing.
The reason I tell you this story is that it baffles and delights me to this day. My parents, generous though they were, were not in the habit of buying us gigantic gifts without reason. All three of these presents were strictly Christmas- or birthday-level gifts. They were expensive. They were heavy hitters. They were the sort of thing that kids in our neighbourhood got once a year, if that. And they were given to us completely without reason of any kind, other than that our parents loved us.
In my adult life, I have, of course, tried to get to the bottom of this and find out if there was some big conspiracy going on behind the scenes at the Brown household, that might have lead to such an elaborate bestowing of gifts. But no. My parents can put no additional purpose to this event, other than the one described above. They just wanted to get us something great, because they loved us.
Now, the moral of the story: folks, do stuff like this whenever you can. Be random. Be unpredictable. Give unexpected presents to kids who will never understand why. Not because kids are greedy and like toys, but because the psychological effects of keeping them off-balance like this are simply too valuable to ignore. I have literally puzzled over this event my whole life. It’s one of the most significant things that happened to me in my childhood. And it’s lead nicely to my ongoing policy that when you want to give someone something you think they’d like, you don’t wait for a birthday.