Toys.

Once, when I was a kid, my mom and I were on our way home from school and on this miraculous day, I spotted a toy store I hadn't noticed before. Something glimmered and sparkled as I took a few steps past the front window. A shiny plastic object deflected the sun's light the way a shield protectively deflects swords, arrows, and lances. With just one glance of this magnificent toy I saw on display, I was immediately glued to the glass window. Like a moth flying towards the light, I was just drawn to it instantly, not at all knowing what it really was. Oh, I wanted everything in the world to get it. I imagined it could do all sorts of things and had all sorts of gadgets I wanted to play with. Soon enough, commercials played on TV for it, the jingle was quick and catchy. I'd sit up close to the TV bobbing my head to the one-minute tune, and when the commercial was done I would think to myself, "I gotta have it!" 

After a week or two of rampaging on with my friends about this toy, I finally got an up-close look at it, right out of its stiff, cardboard box. Though my preview and trial of it was brief, I realized it didn't function at all the way I imagined. It needed batteries, and when the batteries died out, it was dead; all the games and pretending would be over. The texture didn't feel right either. From afar it looked shiny and smooth, fine and durable like a brand new marble floor. In person, it felt rubbery and fake. The same way a cubic zirconia could appear to look like a diamond, but never be a real white diamond. The plastic was shallow and thin, should it fall in the wrong manner, it would break and crack. How could I confuse the toy I saw on display, and the toy I actually held in my hands? I don't know. Maybe the day I noticed it through the store windows, the glare from the sun molded and manipulated its' appearance. Maybe the toy on display was a special version of it; display only, but not to buy. Maybe the one I test-tried out of the cardboard box was completely defective; some kind of manufacturing glitch I suspected.

No matter how many excuses I came up with, my interest was already gone without me fully realizing it. Yes, some part of me still wanted my mom to buy it-- I had some small hope that I might feel different about it if I took it home and played around with it; gave it a chance to redeem itself somehow. In the back of my mind, I already knew this toy stood no chance at being my toy anymore. It was a done deal. It had none of the qualities I dreamed it had, it had none of the functions promised on the cardboard box. It was a dysfunctional, stupid toy that relied on double A batteries for its' survival. Was I just being a dreamer? Did I want and expect too much? After all, it was the same toy I saw on display, the same toy advertised in the infinite commercials I saw on television, in which the jingle in the commercial played in my mind like a broken record-- it was no different. Or was I completely misled by all the false advertisements that portrayed and promised one thing, when really it was another? Who was I to blame, I asked.

No one wants to buy something that appears to be fantastic in the front glass window of a gigantic bright store, that's actually really not amazing at all. In fact, it's just like all the other toys around it. Not much shinier, not much brighter, bigger, or better. It doesn't have any cool light-up buttons that would unlock a magical power. There isn't a cool wireless remote control hidden in its cardboard box that gives you ultimate control over it, making you feel like an almighty God. No, there isn't any of that. 


I never did take that toy home, and after a while I didn't care much at all for it. All curiosity towards it went out the window, and so I moved on to the next best toy-- or so it seemed.