I Play With Toys

The only time there will be a DC/Marvel crossover

Occasionally at work, I have to make phone calls.  I hate making phone calls,  but it's part of the job.  I have to call parents, other schools, or call doctor's offices, etc.

And I get put on hold.  It's not a pretty situation.  There's no really good "on hold" music these days, just commercials or silence.  It gets old.

I don't do well with waiting, I think I've mentioned, even under the best of circumstances.  I get bored listening to the music or commercials or whatever, especially if it plays more than once.

It's not as though I can do something else while I'm waiting.  I can't get up and run to the bathroom, or get a drink of water, or microwave my lunch.  I can glance at my computer screen, but I can't really work on a report or anything requiring concentration.  The second I get focused, the other person on the phone will want my attention.

I suppose that I could put the phone on speaker and then move around, but I'm a little afraid to do that.  I'm afraid that I'll hit the wrong button and hang up.  Or worse, that I'll forget that I'm on hold and burp or pass gas or something mortifying

So...I play with my desk toys.

I highly recommend desk toys.  Mine are little items that I've collected over the year.  A minion here, a ninja there.  Some toys I've "borrowed" from my son, whenever he lost interest.  People have given me some toys, such as my beloved Daryl Dixon(The Walking Dead) dolls--action figures.  I even have a few random Legos in my desk drawer that I occasionally take out and assemble.

I used to hide my toys.  I'm a professional, after all! That means serious business, with no time for frivolity.  Nose to the grindstone, and all that.

Except that I don't work well like that.  I need mental breaks in my day, just like everyone else.  If I choose to play with toys while I'm on hold, where's the harm?  Perhaps if adults played a little more often, maybe they wouldn't be so cranky all the time.  Maybe everyone needs a ninja.

Or a minion. Everybody needs one of those. 

Friends Are A Little Bit of Sunshine

I have a very good friend, Andrea, who lives and blogs over ate Maybe It's Just Me. Although we live hundreds of miles apart, I feel as though we live next door to each other. We share a fondness for Legos, likely brought to the surface by our male progeny.  We are particularly fond of the mini-figures, which are just plain cute.  I just love them all. I know--weird, huh?  I don't care.  I embraced my nerdiness years ago!

As we were waiting in anticipation for the opening of The Lego Movie, I mentioned that I had not been able to find any of the movie mini-figures anywhere. Toys R' Us, Walmart, Target...it was no use crying about it. The "collectors" had cleaned them out. But I did get a bit verklempt when I mentioned it to Andrea. Well, as tearful as one can get via text and emoticons.  Google can only do so much.

So it was with great happiness that I found a package in my mailbox this weekend.  Larry and Zane were sad, because they didn't get any package in the mail.  But when I opened the envelope, out popped three Lego mini-figures, each one with a note on it. 

You would have thought it was Christmas all over again.  Larry and Zane practically bowled me over grabbing their mini-figures, and the next few minutes were spent opening the packages and putting together the figures. 

And indeed, everything was awesome!  Zane got Emmett, the star of The Lego Movie, I got Wild Style, and Larry got Larry the Barrista(which was funnier because my Larry drinks tons of coffee)!  It was a perfect little family bonding moment, each of us with our mini-figures, reciting lines from the movie.

Then we had to go find Batman and Superman, and build a space ship so that we could fly over what's left of Helms Deep and look for Bigfoot.  Good clean fun.  But in this darkest part of winter, when the blahs are rampant, it is nice to open a package of sunshine.  Thank you!

A Childhood Toy Revisited

When you're a kid, there's no thought about tomorrow.  Children are very "now" creatures; what is right in front of them at that particular moment is important and not much else.  Toys are no exception to this rule.  My brother and I played hard with our toys, just like every other kid out there.  Toys needed to be sturdy to make it at our house.  Whatever we imagined, our toys helped us to make it a reality, at least in the time between school and bedtime.  Whenever we moved, my mother would cull the battered and broken pieces of our imagination and haul them off to the dumpster or the thrift shop. 

It would be unfathomable to any child that they leave their toys wrapped in their original packaging to accumulate in value. There was none of that ridiculous "mint-in box" nonsense during my childhood! Toys were meant to be played with, fer cryin' out loud!  Half of the joy was just opening the box and getting the toy ready for adventure.  Children could care less about storing their treasures away--play hard or go home was our motto.  And we did it all without helmets, knee pads, or common sense.

If I would have been more future-oriented, like no child ever, I would never have conducted unsanctioned abdominal surgery on my Mrs. Beasely doll, or overfed my BabyAlive.  Certainly, I would have refrained from using a curling iron to update the hairdo on my Malibu Barbie!  And my brother and I definitely would have treated our comic books better, although we weren't about to stuff them into plastic envelopes.  That would have been silly.

I had a few toys that I kept over the years, ones that I cherished.  One of these toys is a small stuffed St. Bernard.  I received it as a Christmas present from a friend of my parents when I was eight or nine years old.  We were in Germany, a completely different world, and we were all feeling the culture shock as well as the cold.  For some reason, the little gift from someone who was a complete stranger touched my heart.  

He used to sit on my bed or on the table next to it. Whenever we traveled, my pup went with me, safe in my bag. Faithfully, he guarded my dreams and listened to my childhood woes.  If I sang along with the radio, he never cringed when I went flat.  If I read until 3am, he never barked at me to go to sleep.  He really was my best friend.  

 

I never named him, however.  I named all of my other toys, before I destroyed them with vigorous imaginings, but not this guy.  He was different.  I was also never rough with him; I regarded him as fragile, and treated him with kid gloves.  I still do.

Today this rare gem lives in a box at the top of my closet. I don't dare take him out of that box.  Not only would my fragile friend have to deal with Maisy the Destructor attempting to use him for a chew toy, he would have to face the smiling face of my six year old.  One look at those eyes merrily contemplating shenanigans, and my poor toy would disintegrate.  Maybe I'll let Zane look at him when he's the same age as I was.  Sort of a full circle thing. 

Maybe he can have it when he's in college.  Yeah.

4.) A childhood toy you once loved.