Gizmos Galore

As a kid, I didn't have a lot of trinkety toys. Don't get me wrong, we had plenty of things. Action figures, games, blocks. My parents just didn't really buy gadgets and doodads. And as most of our parent's choices from our childhood tend to do, this has affected me as an adult. Only, its effect may not be what you'd expect.

You see, I am a grown man, having been deprived of whatsits and hoohaws for years, but suddenly with the capital to drop tens of dollars a year on little things I absolutely do not need, and yet absolutely must have. It's tempered, mind you. It's not as if I have a drawer full of bendy plastic and clinkity metal junk. But if you walk through the rooms of my house, you will find my fair share of things...dealeos...knick-knacks.

And my wife doesn't love it, but she also doesn't really care. She just wishes I wouldn't leave them out on the counters, or next to the TV, or in the laundry room. But where do baubles really go? I’m a grown man, so it isn’t like I have a place for bric-a-brac to live. Except maybe in my kids’ rooms.

That’s right. The other way my childhood lack of whatnots has affected me is in how I let my kids buy doohickeys. Whenever we’re at the store, or looking online, and one of my kids asks to buy a thingy, I’m torn. There is a part of me that hears my mom or dad’s voice telling me it’s a waste of money on junk. But there is of course another part of me that remembers wanting that junk when I was their age. So who wins?

7-year-old me. If what they want to buy catches (or has already before they even see it caught) my eye, it’s coming home. When I tell one of my kiddos, “we don’t need that gizmo,” what I really mean is “that thingambob doesn’t look fun to me, let’s grab this one instead!”

Gizmos Galore

And so my house is full of “my kids’” whatchamacallits, strewn about shelves and floors and couches. Just waiting for them me to fidget, and tinker, and twiddle, and piddle.

Thanks Mom. Thanks Dad.