For my sixth birthday, I received some of the coolest presents any kid had ever seen. Granted, it was the late nineteen-sixties, so what was cool then may seem antiquated and quaint now, but I’d still put them up against any toys available today. It was my sixth birthday party and I eagerly unwrapped each present until I reached the shiny plastic toy encased in the box with a picture of a kid laughing with amazement – the same amazement I would be experiencing in mere seconds! One of the toys I received that birthday was a caterpillar-like creature that could climb the walls. I had never seen anything like that and today still can’t explain how it worked! Amazing! Another was a clock that did similarly amazing clocky things, the details of which I don’t recall, but it was still super groovy!
The reason for my lack of recollection will be clear in a
moment.
My parents must’ve know how much I dug those toys and wanted
to be sure I didn’t break them, thereby depriving myself of hours of
caterpillar and clock-toy entertainment.
They implemented a plan guaranteed to preserve the toys – a plan that
was so successful that both toys are probably in mint condition to this day:
They hid them from me and I never saw them again.
Over the years, protecting my prized possessions from myself
instilled itself into my mindset so that by the time I was living on my own, I
had learned to self-deprive myself of anything that had a remote chance of
breaking. I have toy-like gifts given to
me by my children that remain displayed on shelves, vacuum sealed in their
original packaging. Hot Wheel car
collections, Mets paraphernalia and movie figurines – all have that new Hot
Wheel car smell, that sparkling Mr. Met smile, that Buzz Lightyear glimmer.
My wife, Hilary, bought me a very expensive remote control
helicopter for Christmas two years ago and continues to ask, “When are you
going to fly your helicopter?” Fly
it? Are you kidding? Not only am I never going to fly it, I’m going to bubble wrap it and put in another vacuum sealed box and store it on a
shelf in my closet, away from damaging sunlight.
My office consists of shelves of preserved toys – boomerangs
that have never boomed. Or rang. Model
planes, adventure tools, weather radios, fishing tools, yo-yos – every kind of
toy a fifty-three-year-old kid could want.
All sitting in their original packages, safe from inevitable
destruction.
Last year I attempted to defy fate and bought a toy for
myself, opened it, removed it from the box and did what had never before been
attempted –I played with it.
It was a drone. The
man who filmed the virtual tour for our house when we listed it for sale seemed
gleeful in his "work” as he soared his drone up down and around our house while
we watched from a remote video receiver.
I had to have one of these, so I bought an entry level drone. A drone toy that I actually touched and felt in
my hands as I gingerly snapped the propellers into place on their rotors and
mounted the camera into its cradle. I was ready for my inaugural flight. And this wasn’t just my inaugural flight of
the drone, it was my first flight into the world of playing with toys. I set
the drone on the lawn – conditions were perfect. Camera? Check! Throttle?
Check! Visibility? Clear and sunny – check!
We had liftoff. The drone lifted
off the ground with the buzzing whir of a thousand bees. Up it went, just over the peak of the
roof. It started to drift northward, so
I tried to steer it back into the yard.
I was losing control to a slight breeze that had pulled it just over the
roof of the house into the front yard.
Abort! Abort! I eased off the
throttle and the drone gently fluttered back to earth. I ran around the house
into the front yard and… the drone was nowhere to be seen. For the next hour I searched every tree and
every square foot of the property for the drone and it was gone. I knew all along where it had gone. I had tempted fate by playing with a toy and
the toy wormhole opened up and swallowed it.
I’m sure if I could activate the remote camera on the drone, I’d see an
amazing caterpillar-like creature climbing the walls and a clocky-thing
that did amazing things, the details of which I don’t recall.
