The Challenged

A ‘Toy’ Like No Other

And it was free

Image created by VM Landi, using Deep AI.

June 6: What was your favorite childhood toy? Did you share it with friends and other siblings, or was it ‘off limits’ to them? Did you or your parents save it as a keepsake? (@vera-marie landi)

Upon entering the first apartment we lived in, there was a small foyer with a door leading to a bathroom on the right. Opposite were doors leading into a kitchen/dining area, and a living room that converted into a bedroom at night. To the left, there was a closet where some of our toys were kept.

I must have been around five at the time, and my sister was two years younger. For the most part, our toys would be somewhere in the living room, along with the couch that opened into a bed and the cribs my sister and I still slept in.

As you can imagine, the room was already packed, so it came as quite a surprise when my father brought home a large item, second only in size to our annual Christmas tree.

He came upon it one night on his way home from work. It was a large, white, rectangular, deep ice-cream freezer with two sliding glass doors on top. It was put out for garbage as it no longer worked, and he thought it would be a fun thing for us kids to play with.

It was! How we loved that thing. It fit both my sister and me when we chose to hide in it or play ‘house.’ At night, we used it to store our toys, and during the day, we pretended to run a grocery or ice cream store.

Sometimes, we’d gather stuffed animals and dolls and set them up in there like it was a doctor’s office waiting room, other times we’d pretend it was a treasure chest.

My mom said it took up too much space and always had to be moved when it was in the way, which seemed to be all the time. One night, after hearing enough of her complaints, my dad called one of my uncles, and out the door it went.

We missed it terribly. For a few days, we didn’t know what to do with ourselves, but it was nice to have space back and not hear my mom complaining about it.

Reminiscing

All these decades later, when my son brought a huge cardboard box from his job to our joint house for the grandkids to play in, how could I say “no?” It brought back good memories of the happy times before my sister and I grew up and went our separate ways.

This box was huge, but my granddaughter loved it and set up her mini-mouse chair, kitchen, and some of her stuffed toys in it. It’s still there, taking up space in her playroom, and will remain there until she tells me it’s okay to remove it, because my ‘box’ was taken away too early.

Any time I am in a grocery store that happens to have that old-style ice cream case, I think of the one I played in for a brief time. I feel how the doors slid in my hands, and how we climbed into and out of it from the couch, and the fake ice cream we made with empty jelly glasses.

It was a toy like no other, and one I never forgot.

June Prompt:

[embed]June is Bustin’ Out all Over Writing prompts coming out the yin-yangmedium.com