Childhood Revisit

As a mean to get away from books for awhile, I suddenly found myself in ‘Toy Я Us’ store near where I lived. Boy, what a great joy I had there!

It wasn’t an intentional act (try sounding naïve) but the penguins near the entrance of the store caught my attention. I had a soft spot for penguins after watching March of a Penguin, used to know the detailed life-journey of the creature by heart (I had notes taken down from the movie!) but slowly diminishing from my aging memory. I thought those soft toys were the movie’s merchandises but a check on the label said otherwise. Wanted to get its merchandise so I was contemplating to get it but, “a soft toy at this age?” “what’s wrong, why not?” “I thought I want it for my car” err… internal conflict!
I went deeper to the store instead of deciding to buy or not. There were the CDs and VCDs of Barney & Friends and other kiddie shows. Made me think of my niece at home, missed singing those Barney songs with her.. I love you, you love me, we're a happy family.. her 3rd birthday is just around corner… and I haven’t get a hold of her 3-mth baby brother yet.


Next were shelves of miniature cars and various vehicles! Wow, the collections there were very inspiring… my personal interest was on the planes! I have only a grand total of 2 at the moment... wait till I work again, I’ll get more. I liked the cars too, made me think of my one-n-only experience of putting up the parts of a red Ferrari for a friend in high school. Me and a few friends bought a miniature Ferrari car as birthday gift to a car-enthusiast friend, and we thought we shouldn’t give an un-done gift to him (didn’t know it was supposed to be a DIY set!) so the rest asked me to ‘prepare’ the car. Ha… I opened the kit and had the fun of my life putting the Ferrari together, with stickers at the sides and all. Then we wrapped it up to give away. Of course my friend was delighted to get the gift, it was a metal-body red Ferrari as big as my two palms put together side-by-side. But now that I think of it again, shame on me, I was the one that had fun with the gift!! Bruce, if you’re reading this, sorry le… where’s the Ferrari now? Collecting dust ah?

Then I saw UNO – the legal card game for youngsters! When was the last time I played UNO? My first was in primary school post-UPSR days. Still diligently went to school after the final exam so that I can play the cards and other games with friends. Those were the pre-IT days, kids met up in real world (not virtual) and played! I liked the stack-up blocks too, but all these were very pricey and still are. I finally bought a Jenga block set on my second working-year.

Oh, and there were Play-Doh too!! Man… I felt like going back and find back my Play-Doh Pizza Kit! Hehe, I never disposed it so it must still be around in my old house. Somewhere in one of the boxes. Play-Doh led the revolution of “plastisin” (the kid language for the sticking play dough), where your hands won’t get dirty or oily after playing hours with it. It was one of the luxury items for kids back then. How did I get my father to buy me and my sister that? I remembered being very cautious (or stingy) with the dough, I allowed only a portion to be played with at a time because it was precious mah.. and I think I still have a generous un-touched portion by now. That was also my first pizza experience :D last time where got pizza selling in KK?? So I made them at home with my Play-Doh ;) I saw a Pizza Kit here too, those little roller, pans, knife, cookie cutter, molds.. awww..



A girl’s childhood would not be complete without Barbie!!.. then la. Now I’m not sure. The last few shelves that I stopped at were the Barbie’s. I remembered how me and my sis got our first Barbies. We couldn’t get our father to buy one because it was so expensive, it was RM70plus then, you know what, it was still the same price now but the buying power then was so much lower than the 22nd century now! Anyway, so he said unless we achieved a certain standard in our school exam we wouldn’t get one. Lo and behold, never dare your girls, both of us met that criterion (I think we had to be among top 10 in class, got a few As or something) at the next exam and he was speechless! Ha, poor man, we pushed him to Home & Garden, and we got one Barbie doll each. We played seamstresses too by tailoring our own Barbie suits cause buying one was too costly. Those were the days.

I could spend the whole day in this store but I needed to hit back the books. Reluctantly I went back, but my heart had lifted up a lot on that boring day. I think a part of me will never grow up, that special part makes life simple and enjoyable.