Saturday Morning Nostalgia

I am not a good little kid shopper. Last night I went to Walmart for the sole purpose of buying a present for my friend Sveta's kid's birthday party tonight at Chuck E. Cheese. Masha is turning six and well, if she were 6-teen or 6-ty I probably could have found something with no problem, but 6 is just not good. I wandered aimlessly through the toy section amidst Tonka trucks and Barbie castles and came to the conclusion that there is just way too much crap in the toy section. Let's face it; it's all a rip off. I mean, how many toys did you actually play with when you were little for more than a week? More than a day? When it comes down to it, there are really only 3 things the basic kid needs to keep him or her happy:

1. Quilts
2. Legos
3. A Refrigerator Box

Let me explain because Lori is probably the only person who is with me at this point. Saturday mornings were very structured in my house when I was little. Dad always worked on Saturdays and Mom took the opportunity to sleep in, so we were on our own. When we didn't have soccer practice, at 6:30, on the dot, my brothers and I got up and fixed ourselves some cereal and watched Beast Wars on Fox 49 with Mrs. Jan. (Can I get a shout out for Mrs. Jan? Any native Tallahassean remembers her. We didn't have cable so the privilege of watching Stick Stickly on Nickelodeon was lost to us.) Then we moved on to Power Rangers, then to X-men, then to Spiderman and sometimes to Bill Nye the Science Guy if we were feeling in the educational mood. Chances are we weren't- so the T.V. was left behind at about 10 a.m.

Now sometimes we read books or watched more TV or played games, but the all time favorite thing to do on Saturday mornings before Mom got up was to get all the quilts and blankets out of the bathroom closet and make a giant tent out of our whole living room. The key to this fantastic event was to get it started before Mom got up, otherwise she wouldn't let us because she knew she would be the one folding up all the blankets and quilts afterwards. But as long as we got it started before 10:30 we were good to go. We always began by stuffing the pink and white quilt into the top of our upright piano (another thing Mom disapproved of) and draped it over the bench. From there on out we threw blankets over couches and love seats and even the fireplace mantle. We had our own country under there, each of us with a separate little piece of the kingdom. I, of course, always ruled the lands surrounding the Piano Castle. This was undisputed. I think that Chris usually ended up ruling the dark, hilly lands of KofeeTabel and Cameron got stuck with the heavily industrial Entertainment Centre Field. Sometimes Mom would even let us keep it up all the way through Sunday. Somehow, even though the blankets were really the equivalent to an indoor shanty town, they managed to keep us entertained for a good part of the whole weekend.

If by some chance Mom got up early on Saturday morning or Dad happened to be off, they would generally look down upon our destroying the whole house for the sake of creating our little indoor kingdom, so we just had to make one that was much smaller. Causing nearly as much mess was our collection of legos, a collection that had been built up for years by small purchases ever so often at garage sales. Cities rose, battles were fought, planets were explored, skyscrapers were constructed- all in the foyer of our house. It was the kingdom of primary colors- red, yellow and blue. We built to our hearts' content, hours on end.

And then there was #3. Every once in a while on the way home from somewhere, Mom would stop by the Maytag store and throw an old refrigerator box into the back of our van. Sometimes she'd get three so that we'd each have one. There is nothing greater than a refrigerator box. They are for both indoor and outdoor use. You can live in it, sleep in it, decorate it, cut holes in it, eat in it, watch movies in it, color in it. Anything exciting you can do as a kid can be made even more exciting by doing it in a refrigerator box. All other toys pale by comparison.

Naturally, I had to bypass getting Masha #1 or #3 for her birthday. And the Lego selection at Walmart seemed to be limited to incredibly complicated, instructions-required legos. A plethora of colors and sizes, translucent and opaque- Lego has gone tragically far from its simple primary color beginnings. I left the toy section feeling quite uninspired. Fortunately, at that very moment Ruth called and gave me some good advice, so I traipsed over to the jewelry section and bought Mashenka some princess jewelry. I hope she likes it. Otherwise I might stop by the Maytag store and get her a slightly unconventional but much more exciting refrigerator box.