A Real American Hero
What is it about toys that makes them stop being fun? A few years ago I got back into Legos pretty big time, my then step-son of the age of 6 being a huge fan and all helping to catalyst the situation. We rented a crusty apartment above a bar in those days, and it was bigger than we had furniture for, so we took the living room and turned it into Battlefield Central: an amalgamation of ragtag pirates and valiant (if shoddy) knights from my collections of old interspersed with the boy’s sleek new Star Wars, Harry Potter and Spiderman collections.
Castles unrivaled in imagination bloomed from neatly sorted piles, surrounded by villages of spacecraft after hovercraft after speederbike ripoffs. It was all grand.
And just as soon as it was all built, I couldn’t resist the urge to destroy it all and forget that I ever wanted to play with them in first place…
Still, it seems like GI Joes and Legos and various other kits of cool toys would be the bizbomb in my adult age, my imagination still full of ideas like using the local dirtpile as Cobra Commanders secret fortress or building a Lego farm that could immitate my Harvest Moon life…
Still, to no avail. It’s more satisfying to sit around drinking beers and conversing with adults or having sex in the afternoon or writing about why I haven’t touched a Snake Eyes in years.
Up Next: Game, Set and Beeswax