Not Yet

 My mother once asked me if there would come a time when it would be okay for her to stop giving me "stupid plastic toys." I believe this came at a time when she felt that I had reached an age when I should be receiving more practical gifts for a more mature person. I let her know that as far as I was concerned, "never" would be the answer I would choose to her speculation.

Now fully ensconced in my sixties, I continue to appreciate that just over my shoulder is the Lego Batmobile my son bought for me this past Christmas. It sits on the piano right next to the Lego Captain America shield I built in the weeks after my most recent birthday, another gift from my son. It was also his influence that got my wife to buy me a Thor action figure, lovingly placed on our living room mantle next to the other bobble heads and action figures. 

When I was in college, my apartment looked a little like Pee-Wee Herman lived there more than a twenty-something trying to lure chicks to his pad. My reckoning was that if a girl didn't what to play Nerf Basketball in my living room, I probably didn't really need her to be in my living room. Feel free at this point to remind me that I spent a great many years alone.

But that meant there was more room for my inflatable Godzilla and six foot tall stuffed Woody Woodpecker. Not to mention the full-sized Battlezone arcade game. 

I am reminded of a time when I was in high school and it occurred to me that if I wanted to buy myself a Stretch Monster, I could. My disposable income could just as easily be spent on toys as it could on any other vice. Which is how I ended up with one of the best toys ever: Big Trak. It was a programmable vehicle that looked for all the world like the model for the Cybertruck. But this was in the late seventies, and I wasn't trying to impress anyone. Only to entertain myself and any of my friends who only wished they were as free as I was to unleash my inner eight year old. 

Yes, there were some rough years in there when the bulk of the plastic toys ended up in my son's room. Which allowed me a certain laissez faire when we went shopping, leaning hard on my son's tastes: "Don't you think this would be cool in your room?" Because dad wanted to play with it. 

And now I am the happy recipient of a return in kind. He understands, even as my sainted mother looks down from the heavens, shaking her head. Not old enough yet, ma!