Winter has rolled into Melbourne well and truely and today whilst I was considering my lunch choices I started to think about Thermoses and warm lunch delicacies. See when I was small there used to look at kids at my school that would bring their lunch in Thermoses and I wanted to be those kids. Just imagine it, no boring sandwiches and fruit and instead something warm and hearty that would get into your cockles. I coveted the containers of goodness but sadly that was never to be for me. I learnt from a young age that life was full of disappointments and sometimes no matter how much I wanted something I wasnt always going to get it, here are some other things that I had my heart set on...
A Baby Born - I think I was about six at the time, the TV advertising had worked and the only thing that I wanted in the whole wide world was a baby born. Yep that rights a baby all of my own, I would feed it and love it and clean up its poos and take it for walks, all I needed was for Santa to bring it to me. My letter must have gotten missed on its way to the North Pole because the fat old bloke left me hanging. Apparently I found out in later years that my parents had searched high and low for one but all the shops were sold out. I am still scarred from it though and I attribute this to part of the reason that I am not kosher with babies *
A new sibling - I am the baby child, the precious little darling that made my parents stop reproducing because I was so perfect they didnt need to keep trying, or something else along those lines but there was something in me that always wanted a younger sibling. Someone new to play with, kinda like when you hope for new kids at school so you have someone to break the monotomy of daily life. It would have also been someone that I could have picked on, isnt that the duty of the yonugest child, to be the butt of all the older siblings jokes? I wanted a butt of my own. I seem to remember fabricating a story at show and tell about how my mother was with child, maybe I thought if I put it out to the universe then it would happen.
Cordial and White Bread - the things that we never got are the things that we always wanted. For me as a kid all I got was dry bread and water (well wholemeal bread and no cool drink) so it was something that i coveted in others lunch boxes and when I was going for visits at friends houses I would gaze in amazement at the contents of their pantry. When we moved to live with our dad we started to eat just like all the other kids but I think those early years scarred me and now as an adult I have no off switch when it comes to these things. I just have to eat eat eat them incase they arent around anymore.
A fancy school Uniform - this one time i decided that I would wear fancy clothes to my normal government school, it was going to be my new look. I wore my stockings and my Prestiline day skirt (what kind of name is that anyway?) and some black Mary Janes but really at the end of the day I was just some stinky little country kid who was better in her grubby sports skirt, bloomers and polo shirt so pretending that I was anything else wasnt going to get me anywhere. Oh if only I had have known then what I know now, being an adult and having to wear corporate gear (which is just like a fancy school uniform but you have to decide what you want to wear everyday) sucks and gets old real quick.
I have always been under the impression that most little girls wanted a Pony, but to be sure I put the question out to my adoring public (or my long suffering Facebook friends) and got some of the following answers which I could relate to
A Tomogotchi - I think I was in year 9 when these became the rage, for those of you that dont know it was a computerised pet thing. You would push buttons to feed it and play with it etc etc, I never got one for myself so when ever my friends let me play with theirs I would go out of my way to discipline their "pet"and tramuatise it to death just out of spite. If I couldnt have one then no one else should have one either. Actually I dont know that I ever actually asked for one but it would have been cool none the less.
Hypercolour Clothing - A few friends of mine said they wanted a Hyper Colour Shirt, well I was pretty cool and not only did I have a hypercolour shirt (it was orange/purple and middriff. Ohh 90's we love you) but I also had a pair of Hypercolour Scrunch Socks. I did live in a country town at the time so probably they werent in fashion anymore but still, for that one time I had things that other people wanted.
Parachute Pants - I had a pair, but they were cheap and nasty and they looked terrible. I actually think that they might have been my sisters and I stole them to wear them (my parents always like to regail my friends about the time that my sister screamed "TAKE MY PANTS OFF" in anger!! Its not dodgy incest like it sounded, I was probably just wearing her parachute pants). People that wore parachute pants were cool and trendy and always ready for sporting adventures. Certainly whilst wearing my Prestaline Day Skirt and Black Mary Janes I was not ready for the last minute sporting adventures.
A Furbee - There seems to be a recurring theme with wanting things to care for and when the Furbees came out they were the must have thing (I have just had the brain wave that all of these things are preparing us for motherhood) and sadly it was another one of those things that I didnt get but would love to play with when someone else had one. This past christmas my little cousin Evie got one and I played with it on the day more than what she did I think, much to my nans distaste.
A Television - Back in the day of fat back TVs and 5 TV channels (or 3 if you lived in the country like I did) it was a kids dream to have a TV in their bedroom or somewhere else where they could watch what they wanted without their parents always wanting to watch the news (As an adult I still dont get the fascination of adults and the news, its full of death and destruction and one sided conspiracy reporting PLUS I am sick of them banging on about Hoons). I think I got mine when I was about 15... even had a remote and all. It was at that moment in time when I knew I was going places
Glitter Jelly Sandals - or Jellys as they were commonly referred to back in the day were the shoes that all the cool kids wore. I so much wanted to be a cool kid and sit with them down near the canteen and what kind of girl does like glitter. I would poop that shit if I could so it only make sense to want it in your shoes as well. I have heard the inside goss though that they may not have been all they were cracked up to be and when your feet got sweaty it got slippery and discusting inside your shoe so maybe all of us that didnt have them actually dodged a bullet. I purchased myself a pair of trendy Crocs last seasons which gave me that plastic shoe feel that I missed out on in my teenage years. Bag crocs as much as you like, they are like walking on air.
Being a child is all about fitting in I guess, we want to be the same as every body else and have all the things that they have so we can be part of the cool club and we dont have to be the odd one out. As I have gotten older I have realised that its ok to not fit in and instead, dance to the beat of your own drum. At the time it was the end of the world that I didnt get the latest gadget or toy but now in hindsite it didnt really matter on the grand scheme of life (well other than the baby born things, that shit mattered). My mum always goes on about how she made things cool, I dont believe this for a second but I think that she is referring to what was cool 20 years ago is starting to become cool again. Now as an adult with an income I am in a position to buy myself all that my heart desires from my child hood and this is pretty exciting seeing that Furby Babies have just been introduced. Quickly Everyone, To the shops and the Big W Toy Sale, lets live our childhoods again.
Love and Crazes
Miss K
* I actually did get a hand me down baby born a few years after my original wish and I remember clearly feeding it some cereal and dilligantly putting it to bed next to me when I went to sleep. I awoke in the morning to find half of its face had been chewed off by mice, waking up with Terminator baby next to me may have been the final nail in the coffin and I am still to this day trying to recover from that. It is also another reason that babies and me dont mix, I am very concerned about having a baby for the simple fact that a rat might eat its face off, I suppose it gives new meaning to the saying "Stop eating your face crunt"
