Found Spidey

As I have mentioned before, I was generally my mother's sidekick until I began school. My mom was never one to shirk responsibilities, and felt that leaving me to be watched by another adult in her stead was indeed avoiding the role that she took on when she became a mother.

That meant if my mom had errands to run, it was adventure time for me. Each new place to a child under the age of 5 can be a world of exciting and often scary situations. Since I knew better than to run amok in public, most of my adventures were silent imaginary scenarios. I had experience playing by myself at that point, so all was well.

On one such adventure I found myself on line at a very busy bank. My mother noticing how long the wait was said I could go sit quietly in the nice comfy leather seats reserved for those waiting to be seen by a loan officer. She did give me the caveat, if she looked in the direction and did not see me, all bets were off. I would have to go and stand in line with her and have to answer for disobeying. Believe me, that was not something I ever wanted to answer!

So I ventured forth to my new comfy local for the time being. It was an old fashioned leather armchair, the kind with the brass buttons that look like rivets. I always loved those chairs, as they instantly became spaceships, and the rivets became control and flight buttons.

After a few minutes of my long term space flight where I would be confined in my cockpit, I noticed something on the floor, behind the row of chairs across the ornate oriental rug that separated my ship from the others. It was red and blue, and could barely be seen as a chunky wooden leg from the armchair was blocking most of it from my view. What was it?!

This began a mind crushing period of time. I would look over across the back to the teller line and check to make sure my mom was not watching. I would then fidget and try to obtain a better view of this mysterious red and blue object until I would notice my Mom's gaze starting to turn in my direction. Rinse and repeat.

At one point during this struggle with my armchair, I almost fell off. But it was at that very point that I received visual confirmation of what my quarry was... It was Spider-man. It was a beautiful 8 inch Mego Spider-man that some other child must have dropped. I looked around, but other than an older gentleman sitting a few chairs away from me, who must have thought I was learning disabled or at the very least, plain stupid, there was no one else around in that waiting area.

I looked towards the teller line and all I saw were grumpy adults who were not happy to be standing in that never-ending line for ONE teller. From what I could tell, there were no other children in the bank. Spidey was going to be mine! That is, if I could figure out a way to get out of my chair, crawl under a different chair, grab him, and get back into my chair before my mom could notice. Then I would have to explain where he came from! What would I say? I found him?

It was the truth, but would my mom let me keep him? What if she made me give him to the bank owner? Then he would have a Spidey to play with.

As I sat there going through the scenarios, my mom tapped me on my shoulders. I hadn't noticed she had moved up in line, much less that she had been at the teller window when I last cased out the bank for other kids. With a sigh, I pointed to where the Spider-man was and whispered to my mom that it looked like someone dropped a toy.

She walked over, reached behind the chair and smiled at the old man and said straight faced, "My daughter dropped her doll." She handed the Spidey to me and said we'd talk outside.

When we stepped out to the cold crisp New York air, she turned to me and said, "Oh well, finders keepers!"

Sometimes I wonder about the poor kid who lost that Spider-man, and then I remember my mom. Finders keepers, indeed.  

Interlude: Just as good

Before I was legitimately old enough to understand the true economic state of my family, I knew we were in no way rich.

I knew by comparing the toys I did have to those of a rude little kid about three houses down. His name was Charlie, and he had every toy you could think of. He would come outside with his toys and play in his fenced in front yard, while the rest of the children on our street rode by on our hand-me-down bikes like gawking construction workers admiring a lady with too short a skirt.

Now, Charlie would on occasion choose one of the many admirers and invite them through the gate to partake of his many wares. The rest were "allowed" to watch them play.

I was never chosen, because I had committed the unforgivable sin of being born a girl.

Charlie did serve somewhat of purpose in my life, though. He served as toy catalog. If he had it, it was available at stores. I just could not for the life of me figure out WHAT store.

Whenever my mother would go shopping, she always took me along. It helped that I was rather well behaved. My mother was a bargain shopper, so generally when shopping we would stop at multiple shops. Among them: Alexanders, Odd Lots, ABC (in Cityline), Woolsworth, and several Oriental market type stores that carried stereotypical Chinatown like wares.

Although I was usually allowed to wander in the toy sections, the toys I found were usually either a few years old (and heavily clearanced) or they kind of looked like the toys I was looking for, or were in foreign packaging (read: knock-offs.)

On the few rare occasions I would find something I wanted, like say Voltron, my mom, smooth salesman that she was, would point out that the Go Lion Force Robot thing that was not diecast, but most probably blow molded was "just-as-good."

Although I never quite fell for this trick, I got the message loud and clear, "We can't afford it, get the knock-off or go home without a toy."

In my imagination, whichever knock-off I happen to be playing with, was of course the real thing. We all had grand adventures, Plastic Lion Robot, Googly-eyed Godzillaish Lizard, Bo and Luke Duke (on clearance from TruValue), their ride, a broken Bespin cloud car I found in the neighbor's trash one day (which I still own), Remco Warlord (instead of He-Man), Decker, and a Rambo lookalike from Remco's GI Joeish line.

Of course all the fun would come to a screeching halt, the day Charlie rode his brand new BMX by my house and loudly made fun of my cheap toys.

I started playing in my backyard more often after that.

Charlie was a jerk.

Mego Batgirl

[Preface: In previous posts I have alluded to an incident involving a set of Magnetic Batman and Robin figures. At times I come across as bitter, and in truth, I am to a certain extent. This incident is a painful childhood memory, and to this day I still carry some of the hurt. I don't speak of it often, and I have been putting this one story off for a while to the point that I have updated less often than I would like to. Today, I have decided it's now time to let go.]

It was the Christmas season of 1980. Ronald Reagan had just been elected president of the United States, and my father was overjoyed. In January he would take office, and President Carter and the lean times of the 1970's would finally be over. I would turn 5 that first week of January, and we would celebrate it Uruguay, with our extended family, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins that we were only able to see every 2 to 3 years.

As the 1980's had promised, this new decade was already looking good for my family. My parents had saved up and were now home owners of a 2 family walk-up in Ozone Park, Queens. This Christmas was to be celebrated like no other. As such, the first week of December included a shopping trip to Alexanders to purchase a full sized tree, decorations, more lights than should be allowed, and a few odds and ends for family.

Normally shopping trips involved my mother and I on a bus or the subway, as we were a 1 car family, with that 1 car being my father's mode of transportation for work. This Christmas, though was special. My father wanted to come along, as he felt that it was his responsibility to make the outside of the house glow like the sun. If it involved ladders, nails and hammers... it was man's work. We piled into our 1972 mustard yellow Ford Maverick (with the brown vinyl roof) and went off for a Saturday of shopping.

I don't recall much from that shopping trip, other than it was cold outside, hot inside, and boring. Relief came over me as we approached the checkout lanes. That meant it was time to go home.

That's when I saw it.

The one image that would burn into my mind for decades to come. I still dream of it.

Over each checkout lane hung white chains from the ceiling. Usually they attached teddy bears, dolls, balloons, anything that would bring a young child to a high pitched scream, and thereby force the parent to buy it to shut them up.

But I did not see teddy bears or dolls. I saw aisle after aisle, checkout lane after checkout lane, from ceiling to right above the counter... Mego magnetic Batmans and Robins. They had been taken out of the boxes and were hanging from their hands and feet. Some were posed as though they were climbing. Others held hands and made a Batman/Robin chain from over one counter to the next. It was beautiful.

And I wanted them so badly I could taste it. And it would indeed taste good. Like candy flavored candy topped with candy and sprinkled with even more candy.

I went to my father, the weak link in the "asking for stuff" chain of command. I asked him, "If I'm really good, do you think Santa will bring me a Batman and Robin like those?" as I pointed above our heads. It was too close to Christmas to even consider asking for anything outright. I was never a stupid child. I was just a little naive.

My father's response was a parental cliche', "You'll have to remember to ask Santa."

Fine. Now I just needed to find Santa, or one of his many emissaries.
[note: my parents once explained to me that Santa is a rather busy man, and as such he cannot be everywhere. To that end he employs emissaries around the world to stand at street corners and at shopping centers to "take orders" from the children of the world, and that these emissaries reported to the big man himself daily. I was a rather inquisitive child, and my parents were rather creative in answering my logistical questions with answers that had a little real world logic for backing.]

I wrote a letter to Santa with the help of my mother. I placed the letter in a mailbox and went on to dream of Christmas morning.

Christmas came and went. No Batman or Robin.

Evidently, the man can fly around the world in the span of one night delivering toys to every boy and girl, but he cannot read Spanish.

Immediately after Christmas, my mother needed to make another trip to Alexander's to buy some odds and ends for our month long trip to South America, and exchange some clothes which were too small for me already. Since my birthday was coming up soon, my mom said I could pick out something as a gift. I knew exactly what I wanted and made a beeline to it.

When I arrived... all those wonderful chains above the checkout lanes were bare. I asked my mother if she remembered the toys that were there a month previously, and she did not.

As I went to the toy section, I remember walking by a dump full of boxes. I know now that it was full of Mego 8 inch Batgirls, Catwomans, and Supergirls. What I knew then was, it was NOT the Batmans or Robins I wanted, so I didn't really care.

Disappointed, I grabbed an 8 Inch Mego Batgirl.

I have never hated a toy so much in my whole life. It really wasn't her fault though. She was just a victim of circumstance.  Just was a substitute for what I really wanted, and never received. I just couldn't look at her and NOT see that image of Magnetic Batmans and Robins.

And I could never look at Santa the same either.