December Semi-Daily: gifts

[resonant]

isabellerecs, "What Christmas present had you wanted badly but never received as a kid?"

I had some sort-of-cousins (not really related by blood but might as well have been) whose parents were a lot less suspicious of television than mine were.

I had a lot of lovely things as a kid (my father was one of eleven, so I could never complain about not getting enough gifts) -- but these kids always had That Great New Thing. They had Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots and an Easy Bake Oven and one of those toys where you poured the rubbery liquid into the mold and made a bunch of tiny rubbery monsters (boy, I remember so vividly how that liquid smelled), and those big inflated things you sat on and hopped, the whole giant three-story Matchbox garage, Velvet and Crissy ("with growing pretty hair!" said the commercial, which even in first grade I could tell was a weird adjective order) and the Barbie giant makeover head. And a rock tumbler.

Oh, I longed for a rock tumbler. My semicousins polished me a whole batch of rocks -- by that time they were sick of the thing themselves, and mostly wanted to watch TV and run shrieking around the house -- and they gave me some of the cheap jewelry findings it came with so I could make ugly too-big necklaces out of them; I remember that one rock I found in the yard polished up to look a whole lot like the inside of a Snickers bar after you've nibbled off all the chocolate.

A generation later, someone gave the kidlet a rock tumbler. My god, the endless roaring noise the thing made! It took about 72 hours to put the rocks through all the stages of polishing! Even the basement wasn't far enough away. It ran the last day of its one and only cycle in the garage.






26 --runpunkrun, I'd be interested to hear about your experience with the CPAP machine.
27 --destina, "how has your relationship to fandom changed over the years? By which I mean not just participation in it, but your level of tolerance/interest for the cyclical things about it, the way old arguments never really stop or die, etc, but also the ways fandom changes and new ways of doing fandom evolve. (And old ways evolve out, and terms evolve, etc.)"
28 -- kass, "What do you like best about where you live?"
29 -- mecurtin, What is the most beautiful sight you see outside on a regular basis? Can be a building, landscape, plant, animal, artwork, people playing, whatever.
30 -- china_shop, "Your favourite book you read this year."
31 -- wolfshark, "what is your favorite story to reread of your own stuff? what was your favorite story to write?"

Comments

[hopelessheathen57]

My sister had one of those rock tumblers when we were kids. The polished stones were definitely not worth the noise you had to go through to get them. I think we only did one round, too. I totally forgot that thing existed until seeing your post. :)

[resonant]

I wonder if the electric bill was higher the one time we used it?

[akacat]

I had one of the liquid rubber mold machines. I loved it. Unfortunately, so strongly was it ingrained in me that buying refills of any sort was a waste of money, that I was incredibly stingy with the liquid and never even used all of it. A few years ago I decided I should buy myself a new machine, with permission to buy as many refills as I wanted. But it’s long since been redesigned to not burn the shit out of kids’ fingers, and I’m not convinced that the new design (with a new type of liquid that doesn’t require heat) is anywhere near as cool.

I always wanted an easy-bake oven though!

[resonant]

Me too, but my mother didn't really want me to have a hobby that involved making and eating cakes all day long. Or, like, ever.

[isabellerecs]

LOL, I can only imagine the noise. :) There doesn't seem to be anything they won't dust off and redesign to sell to a new set of kids. ;)

[resonant]

I guess the desire to have polished rocks is more universal than I would have thought among children.

[krait]

I had a rock tumbler! It was awesome.

Notably, however, it lived in the garage, under a box, further muffled with a wool blanket. :D

I probably still have some of the rocks that I polished, and I often wish I still had the tumbler! Perhaps one day I'll buy another - though without a garage, I'm not sure where it will live...

[resonant]

That kind of setup would have helped a lot.