There was this game show for kids in the 80s, (I regrettably cant remember the name, it may have been a local thing) in which at the end of the show the winner got to answer as many trivia questions as they could in 60 seconds. These correct answers were transformed into the number of seconds they were allowed to push a shopping cart around Toys R Us to fill up with whatever they wanted, and that was what they took home as prizes for winning. It was a SuperMarket Sweep for children. My sister and I would LOSE OUR FUCKING MINDS when some 7 year old girl would win and fill up her cart with random plush animals worth fractions of the video games, sports equipment and action figures within eyeshot. But for the most part, kids went BONKERS for x seconds and would literally hold their hands out in front of their cart and run down the board game aisle, and bricks of Operation, Sorry! and Battleship piled up in their hoppers. Most kids played it right, and walked out of there with the fixings for a fully stocked, brand new game room and the celebrity and incoming offers of friendship from your entire elementary school.
I wanted to be that kid. I wanted to have a ridiculous shopping spree. It was part of my little kid dreams, day and night. I did end up having 3 chances at a toy store shopping spree in my life. When I was one month shy of my 8th birthday, my family moved 200 miles away. In this Upstate, NY town there was a store called “Toys for Joy” that gave you an opportunity to choose a key that could open the shopping spree treasure chest on your birthday. They’d announce your name over the store intercom and play some retarded song and invite everyone to come to watch me attempt to open this chest, which allowed for a one minute spree. The chest never opened and the store would give me a $10 gift certificate that my parents would use to buy me a toy because they were awesome people. But, it wasnt the spree that I was waiting all year for the chance to get. A month before my 12th birthday “Toys for Joy” closed and my childhood closed with it when I came to grips with the fact that life is not a storybook, and I would never have my chance at a plastic recreational bonanza.
Recently, it occurred to me that I could possibly gain a similar experience. I could still have a chance to be that kid. It hasn’t happened yet, I expect it to someday, and I don’t think I’m anticipating it enough. That kid is me at my first visit to a marijuana dispensary. I’ll be hopping up and down, shaking my arms in front of my mouth like I’m speed eating an invisible corn on the cob, cheshire cat smile causing head shaking from employees. “I’ll take that one, and that one, and I, I want some brownies, and, and some cookies and one of those, and OH MY GOD WHAT IS THAT CAN I SMOKE THAT I’LL TAKE SEVEN” I will try it all by the dime load, and Augustus Gloop will be giving me disapproving looks from his chocolate coffin. It will be worth it. I will make thunderheads in my hotel room. You will mistake my living room for San Francisco dawn. My game room will be fully stocked with bricks of things called Jumanji, Hungry Hungry Hippos & Candy Land. And I will know what those kids felt like when they were filling their hearts, as they filled their carts.
The Whimsical MetaCognitionist Chronicles 