Confessions of a Recovering Spoiled Brat (kinda long)
Once upon a time, I, Carolyn Jayne Dallimore the Only, was a spoiled brat. I think I should say upfront that there is a very good reason for this: immigration. My mother came to Canada from England with her mother, father, and brother in the Groovy Years; my Welsh father wandered over here on his own much later on. At some point, my mother had a son, my brother, Rob. At some other point, thirteen years later, she had a wonderful, talented, intelligent daughter -- me. Consequently, I was the youngest and the cutest of the small Canadian clan, and the only one without an independent source of income. So they spoiled me (except my father, who never bought me anything ever.)
I had it all, in the golden heyday of my youth. I had just about every Barbie imaginable, as well as the mansion with the working elevator, the campervan, the horse stable, the ranch, a pool, the electronic Barbie car with the “working” car phone, and a small Kelly school. I got a large number of the dolls I wanted; the talking twins, the one that had her own tray of food, the sick one, the one that turned into a buttercup if you squeezed her head to her knees really, really hard. I was the proud CEO of Melanie’s Mall, which was a crappy Barbie knockoff that was actually much, much cooler than Barbie. I had a wealth of computer games and virtual pets. I had a Polly Pocket carnival, a pretend grocery store conveyor belt, and four different food-making toys, including a McDonalds one. The Sailor Moon wands? Mine. A new deck of Pokemon cards every month or so, when they were really popular? Mine. I also enjoyed a regular supply of the cooler kinds of Lunchables and VHS movies.
I feel I must mention that I never particularly cared for any of this stuff -- except for Melanie’s mall, that was cool. I had my pick of the most technologically advanced dolls, but my very favourite was a rag doll from an easter basket, who I called Courtney, and who, according to my mother, was very smelly by the time I gave her up. I preferred playing in my brother’s beat-up old flintstones-esque car than the Barbie one. And the only Barbie dolls I ever played with were the ones I bought with my own hard-earned cash: Tie-Dye Barbie and Hair-Colour Barbie. For everyone here who didn’t grow up spoiled, there is a reason for that, too; most of the toys other children wanted so badly, the ones I always got, were actually crap. The commercials said that they had all kinds of neat, unfathomable technological tricks that would keep you entertained for years, but in actuality, it is painfully dull, trying to align stupid dolls at the right angle so that their sensors could detect one another and then pressing the buttons on their hands to make them have fun without you, listening to a whiney woman’s voice pretending to be Barbie on the car phone, and so on. If you had been spoiled, you would know.
Anyway, I eventually developed into a sort of…Hippie, if you will, and my spoiled past caused a wee bit of embarrassment on my part, even though I didn’t really like the things I was spoiled with. Ashamed, I sought to justify my decadent kidhood any way I could. I didn’t get everything I wanted, I would say. For instance, I didn’t get the Beauty and the Beast Mirror. Now, if anyone here missed the memo, in the 1990’s the Beauty and the Beast handheld mirror was The Thing to Have. The thing lit up and showed real pictures of the characters, for Lumiere’s sake! It was white with pink roses, and it was pretty, and every little girl wanted one. For years, I have commiserated with those little girls, now grown, because I too wanted the coveted mirror, and I too was overlooked by the Great Mirror-Givers In The Sky.
Ehehehe….
Today, Kaitlyn and I were on a nostalgia trip. Remember, I said, those Beauty and the Beast mirrors that would light up and have the pictures, that everyone wanted, but that only the annoying brats got? Yes, she said, and we proceeded to have a long, drawn out conversation about the toys of our childhood, in which I did most of the talking, and Kaitlyn did most of the glaring. But there was still that one toy that neither of us had, that all-important childhood desire, the Mirror. I thought it was a fun conversation, so when I got off the bus and into my mother’s car, I said; “Hey mum, do you remember this toy? It was a Beauty and the Beast mirror, and it lit up and talked, and everyone I knew wanted it but no one ever got it?” “Was it white with pink roses on it?” asks my mother. “Yes!” say I, pleased that she, too, remembered the childhood trauma that was the unreachable existence of this toy. “You had that,” she said, “but you didn’t play with it much.”
I what?
I cannot for the life of me remember owning this toy; only dreaming about owning it. The vague memories I have of childhood involve dreaming about what I would do if only I could own the elusive Mirror. But my mother’s memory for my childhood possessions is sharp, and I really can’t think of any reason I wouldn’t have been the annoying brat that got the most desirable Mirror. So I owned it. And then, at some point, I got bored of owning it, went back to playing with my ratty rag doll and my brother’s tonka toys, and forgot everything about it - except the longing I had felt, seeing it in the TV commercials. There is an entire toy in my childhood that I not only forgot about owning, but also, bragged about wanting and never getting. My entire memory of being a, for once, normal, toy-lusting child, was a lie.
But I can see why I’d forget it. Who wants to listen to a stupid Mirror talking all day?
In other news, when my dad was a child, Mr. Potato Head actually involved real potatoes. How weird is that?
I had it all, in the golden heyday of my youth. I had just about every Barbie imaginable, as well as the mansion with the working elevator, the campervan, the horse stable, the ranch, a pool, the electronic Barbie car with the “working” car phone, and a small Kelly school. I got a large number of the dolls I wanted; the talking twins, the one that had her own tray of food, the sick one, the one that turned into a buttercup if you squeezed her head to her knees really, really hard. I was the proud CEO of Melanie’s Mall, which was a crappy Barbie knockoff that was actually much, much cooler than Barbie. I had a wealth of computer games and virtual pets. I had a Polly Pocket carnival, a pretend grocery store conveyor belt, and four different food-making toys, including a McDonalds one. The Sailor Moon wands? Mine. A new deck of Pokemon cards every month or so, when they were really popular? Mine. I also enjoyed a regular supply of the cooler kinds of Lunchables and VHS movies.
I feel I must mention that I never particularly cared for any of this stuff -- except for Melanie’s mall, that was cool. I had my pick of the most technologically advanced dolls, but my very favourite was a rag doll from an easter basket, who I called Courtney, and who, according to my mother, was very smelly by the time I gave her up. I preferred playing in my brother’s beat-up old flintstones-esque car than the Barbie one. And the only Barbie dolls I ever played with were the ones I bought with my own hard-earned cash: Tie-Dye Barbie and Hair-Colour Barbie. For everyone here who didn’t grow up spoiled, there is a reason for that, too; most of the toys other children wanted so badly, the ones I always got, were actually crap. The commercials said that they had all kinds of neat, unfathomable technological tricks that would keep you entertained for years, but in actuality, it is painfully dull, trying to align stupid dolls at the right angle so that their sensors could detect one another and then pressing the buttons on their hands to make them have fun without you, listening to a whiney woman’s voice pretending to be Barbie on the car phone, and so on. If you had been spoiled, you would know.
Anyway, I eventually developed into a sort of…Hippie, if you will, and my spoiled past caused a wee bit of embarrassment on my part, even though I didn’t really like the things I was spoiled with. Ashamed, I sought to justify my decadent kidhood any way I could. I didn’t get everything I wanted, I would say. For instance, I didn’t get the Beauty and the Beast Mirror. Now, if anyone here missed the memo, in the 1990’s the Beauty and the Beast handheld mirror was The Thing to Have. The thing lit up and showed real pictures of the characters, for Lumiere’s sake! It was white with pink roses, and it was pretty, and every little girl wanted one. For years, I have commiserated with those little girls, now grown, because I too wanted the coveted mirror, and I too was overlooked by the Great Mirror-Givers In The Sky.
Ehehehe….
Today, Kaitlyn and I were on a nostalgia trip. Remember, I said, those Beauty and the Beast mirrors that would light up and have the pictures, that everyone wanted, but that only the annoying brats got? Yes, she said, and we proceeded to have a long, drawn out conversation about the toys of our childhood, in which I did most of the talking, and Kaitlyn did most of the glaring. But there was still that one toy that neither of us had, that all-important childhood desire, the Mirror. I thought it was a fun conversation, so when I got off the bus and into my mother’s car, I said; “Hey mum, do you remember this toy? It was a Beauty and the Beast mirror, and it lit up and talked, and everyone I knew wanted it but no one ever got it?” “Was it white with pink roses on it?” asks my mother. “Yes!” say I, pleased that she, too, remembered the childhood trauma that was the unreachable existence of this toy. “You had that,” she said, “but you didn’t play with it much.”
I what?
I cannot for the life of me remember owning this toy; only dreaming about owning it. The vague memories I have of childhood involve dreaming about what I would do if only I could own the elusive Mirror. But my mother’s memory for my childhood possessions is sharp, and I really can’t think of any reason I wouldn’t have been the annoying brat that got the most desirable Mirror. So I owned it. And then, at some point, I got bored of owning it, went back to playing with my ratty rag doll and my brother’s tonka toys, and forgot everything about it - except the longing I had felt, seeing it in the TV commercials. There is an entire toy in my childhood that I not only forgot about owning, but also, bragged about wanting and never getting. My entire memory of being a, for once, normal, toy-lusting child, was a lie.
But I can see why I’d forget it. Who wants to listen to a stupid Mirror talking all day?
In other news, when my dad was a child, Mr. Potato Head actually involved real potatoes. How weird is that?