# Things you wanted as a kid and now have as an adult. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 18, 2009, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-wanted-as-a-kid-and-now-have-as-an-adult/489877 "2009-03-18T13:11:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2009, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-wanted-as-a-kid-and-now-have-as-an-adult/489877/61 "2009-03-19T10:41:08Z")
The resources to make stuff. I’ve always liked making things. I used to look at books with instructions on making interesting things when I was a kid but they always blythely said things like: "You will need: 6 pipecleaners a two foot length of bamboo one inch in diameter a one gallon glass bottle" and there was always something we didn’t have and I couldn’t get and I couldn’t work around. Now I can have whatever shit I can find on the entire internets, plus I happen to live near the most fantastic recycled materials/random crap warehouse you can imagine. And I have money. ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2009, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-wanted-as-a-kid-and-now-have-as-an-adult/489877/62 "2009-03-19T12:06:03Z")
> [@Toxylon](#): > > Please note that wrist rocket bands deteriorate over time, decade-old ones snapping with a high probability. Happened to me once - glad my anchor point was low and the 120 mph bit of rubber just grazed my cheek. Felt like someone had swiped a red-hot coal over the skin. The band was already long decayed when I dug it out the other day. Darn. ---
**Author:** ![Pushkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@Pushkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pushkin)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2009, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-wanted-as-a-kid-and-now-have-as-an-adult/489877/63 "2009-03-19T14:49:43Z")
> [@capybara](#): > > I also have a crapload of Legos now, which makes me very happy. I considered picking up some of those, but my daughter enjoys Duplo, so I’ll have not just an excuse but a perfectly valid reason to pick up some more 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2009, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-wanted-as-a-kid-and-now-have-as-an-adult/489877/64 "2009-03-19T15:14:31Z")
> [@cmkeller](#): > > As a kid, I always wanted to travel. Now my wife and I have been to all 50 states and all 10 provinces of Canada. I couldn’t think of anything til I saw this. It’s true for me, too. I wanted to see the world more than anything when I was a kid, but we weren’t wealthy. I’m still not wealthy (I’m a grad student), but I’ve been to seventeen countries on four continents now and am nowhere near done. Sure, I don’t have a house or a kid or…virtually any possessions, but I travel. It makes me happy. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2009, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-wanted-as-a-kid-and-now-have-as-an-adult/489877/65 "2009-03-19T15:33:02Z")
When I was a teenager, my mom had a very unfriendly cat. It hated me, hissed at me if I tried to pet it, and generally avoided me. Now I have two friendly cats who purr when I pet them. One of them usually sleeps in my bed, and the other does sometimes. > [@cmkeller](#): > > As a kid, I always wanted to travel. Now my wife and I have been to all 50 states and all 10 provinces of Canada. I always wanted to travel without the long boring car trips my parents always took. Now, I fly if I’m going anywhere that would take more than about 3.5-4 hours to drive to. I take long boring plane trips, but let’s face it- I’d rather sit in one place for 14 hours and end up in Australia than in Wisconsin. It helps that I don’t get airsick nearly as easily as I get carsick, too, so I can read on a plane. I also go on trips to places where there are no relatives or family friends to visit, unlike most of the trips my parents took me on. I go places just to go to them, not to see somebody there. I didn’t get to travel out of the country till I was 21. Now most of my vacations are to places outside the US. > [@eclectic wench](#): > > I never eat anything I don’t like (unless turning it down would actually offend someone), because I can still remember being six years old and having to sit at the cafeteria table all afternoon because I wouldn’t eat this vile slab of reeking rancid cat food that they called ‘meat loaf’. There were only two thoughts in my head: ‘BARF’ and ‘When I am a grown-up I will never ever ever eat anything I don’t like.’ Same here. If all that is available is stuff I don’t like, I can eat a few bites or a few side dishes to be polite and _later on go out and buy something I do like with my own money_. If there is no food in the house that I like, I can go to the grocery store or a restaurant or order takeout. ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2009, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-wanted-as-a-kid-and-now-have-as-an-adult/489877/66 "2009-03-19T15:36:29Z")
A few of my favorite childhood books. I spent my childhood “with my head stuck in a book”, and they were from the library, of course. Now, every so often, I search for a childhood favorite, like “King of the Wind” by Margurite Henry, online, and if I find that particular OLD edition, I’ll buy it for myself. If I live long enough to have a granddaughter, I’ll have a nice little library to foist upon her. Oh, and I seriously would like to find a couple of Millie the Model comic books (readers could draw an item of clothing, send it in, and they might draw your creation on Millie with a notation that it was from you!)…Or, God help me, a Katy Keene fashion comic book! They are available if I search hard enough, but terribly expensive, and I just can’t justify spending that kind of dough now. ---
**Author:** ![Mike\_Fun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a9adbd/32.png) [@Mike\_Fun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mike_Fun)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2009, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-wanted-as-a-kid-and-now-have-as-an-adult/489877/67 "2009-03-19T15:48:45Z")
A big honking modular synthesizer. I was smitten by the sound after hearing “Switched On Bach” and seeing a modular synthesizer in the last scene of “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” I even made a ‘pretend’ synthesizer by driving a bunch of roofing nails into an old piece of wood and pretending those were the knobs. Years later I have an ever-growing modular synth that is an unending source of weird sounds and enjoyment. If the aliens ever come, I’ll be prepared to speak with them. ---
**Author:** ![ShotgunZen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@ShotgunZen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShotgunZen)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2009, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-wanted-as-a-kid-and-now-have-as-an-adult/489877/68 "2009-03-19T15:55:48Z")
My own room! A space that was my own. Now that I’m old and married it’s my den, but I remember the first time I had a bedroom to myself! I was practically giddy. ---
**Author:** ![Pammipoo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/87869e/32.png) [@Pammipoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pammipoo)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2009, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-wanted-as-a-kid-and-now-have-as-an-adult/489877/69 "2009-03-19T18:25:31Z")
1. Granted when I was a kid it was on tv, but now I get the episodes as they’re released on dvd. I think I’m up to season 6. New Kids on the Block-I’ve been to see them twice now since they made their comeback. They’re still as yummy as they were when I was 10. It amazes me how many adults bought the big box of crayons…in my defense, it was only like 50 cents more to upgrade from the 48 count…AND I got a crayon sharpener. ---
**Author:** ![lobotomyboy63](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobotomyboy63/32/2900_2.png) [@lobotomyboy63](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lobotomyboy63)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2009, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-wanted-as-a-kid-and-now-have-as-an-adult/489877/70 "2009-03-19T18:46:24Z")
I have a BB/pellet gun. Technically I had one when I was younger: it must have belonged to an older brother because I found it in a closet. It had this really unusual sight. You flip up a half-moon that had like a pinhole in the middle of it, then line it up with the sight at the business end of the barrel. I could hit a quarter at about ten feet…cool! When I oiled it, it stopped working. My mom never liked those things and wouldn’t let me get a new one. So I got one a couple years ago, and it’s out in the garage. She has a scope, you know, and pumped ten times, could do some real damage. When I go home I sometimes take it with me. Illinois, out in the country, there are good places for plinking. As I leave mom’s house I say, “I’m going to go shoot my eye out. I’ll be back in a little while.” ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2009, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-wanted-as-a-kid-and-now-have-as-an-adult/489877/71 "2009-03-19T19:13:23Z")
Two things I saw at the Museum of Science and Industry in the 60s that I absolutely coveted: an oscilloscope and a speakerphone. In my 20s bought a used oscilloscope for a ridiculously cheap price. My current phone is a speakerphone. I also wanted a laser. In the 60s Edmund was selling them for about $100. Now I have a laser pointer that cost much less. I wanted some means of recording TV shows and in a few cases I made tape recordings of the audio. Practical home VCRs weren’t available until I was in my 30s. I’ve been through a couple of VCRs, and now they’re obsolete. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2009, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-wanted-as-a-kid-and-now-have-as-an-adult/489877/72 "2009-03-19T20:08:26Z")
> [@An\_Arky](#): > > Maybe not so goofy, but when I was about 15, I wanted to have a guitar and amp like Paul Weller when he was in The Jam. I now have them (Rickenbacker 330 and Vox AC-30) And how very cool they are! Along the same lines, I just wanted to be able to play guitar…at the time I didn’t have a specific make I wanted (or rather it changed daily) but I wanted to be a decent player… ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2009, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-wanted-as-a-kid-and-now-have-as-an-adult/489877/73 "2009-03-19T20:52:35Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > Do you remember the house in Fond du Lac that John Hollister built? I thought as a boy that was the most beautiful house I’d ever seen and I wanted it. I wanted to live in it, and eat in it and clean it. And even as a boy, I wanted to have children to run around in it. > > Now I built a house just like it, here, by the ocean. I think if I saw the house it was modeled after, though, it would make me sick. How’s the bowling alley? ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2009, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-wanted-as-a-kid-and-now-have-as-an-adult/489877/74 "2009-03-19T22:27:37Z")
> [@rowrrbazzle](#): > > Two things I saw at the Museum of Science and Industry in the 60s that I absolutely coveted: an oscilloscope and a speakerphone. In my 20s bought a used oscilloscope for a ridiculously cheap price. My current phone is a speakerphone. > > I also wanted a laser. In the 60s Edmund was selling them for about $100. Now I have a laser pointer that cost much less. > > I wanted some means of recording TV shows and in a few cases I made tape recordings of the audio. Practical home VCRs weren’t available until I was in my 30s. I’ve been through a couple of VCRs, and now they’re obsolete. You are a prospective customer for [American Science & Surplus](http://www.sciplus.com/), if you’re not an actual customer. They have all sorts of odd bits of equipment, at amazing prices. How can you not love a store that has “Robot Partz” as a category? They’ll buy and sell anything, if they think there’s a market for it. I recommend bookmarking it and then browsing when you have spare time…and spare cash. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2009, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-wanted-as-a-kid-and-now-have-as-an-adult/489877/75 "2009-03-19T23:42:50Z")
Green Lantern rings 3 versions of The One Ring Sting A hooded cloak Staves Max Action- an action figure that changes from Ken to Freddy Krueger Talking Freddy Krueger doll Toys based on Ray Harryhausen’s Sinbad films Jetfire, the Autbobot a bunch of weird cigarette lighters (don’t smoke, but like odd lighters) Bunches of Rubik’s and other puzzles ---
**Author:** ![maladroit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f475e1/32.png) [@maladroit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/maladroit)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2009, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-wanted-as-a-kid-and-now-have-as-an-adult/489877/76 "2009-03-20T19:04:35Z")
Any time I eat dessert out of the pan - cake or pie, or cheesecake yumm - I have a brief moment of appreciation of being an adult and having the luxury of eating the whole thing if I wanted to. (I don’t usually eat the whole thing , not at one sitting anyway). And I can have it for breakfast if I want. ---
**Author:** ![LavenderBlue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e95f7d/32.png) [@LavenderBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LavenderBlue)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2009, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-wanted-as-a-kid-and-now-have-as-an-adult/489877/77 "2009-03-20T19:37:27Z")
Cats. My mom’s allergic. Gerbils and fish do not purr. ---
**Author:** ![Student\_Driver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3da27b/32.png) [@Student\_Driver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Student_Driver)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2009, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-wanted-as-a-kid-and-now-have-as-an-adult/489877/78 "2009-03-20T19:53:52Z")
A number of things. Arcade games. Wanted some when I wasn’t even tall enough to play them without being held up by my mom. Bought three when I was 18, and still have them. (Satan’s Hollow, Karate Champ, and 1943). All the old computers and video game consoles which fascnated me when I was a kid (mid 1970s to early 1990s). Plus lots of games for them. A library. I have a small room lined with tall bookcases, filled with books, as well as an island in the middle made of shorter shelves holding more books and periodicals. Now all I need to do is get a dictionary stand for the island, and a globe. Every library needs a globe. ---
**Author:** ![emmaliminal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7bcc69/32.png) [@emmaliminal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emmaliminal)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2009, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-wanted-as-a-kid-and-now-have-as-an-adult/489877/79 "2009-03-20T20:38:03Z")
As many scissors as I want, all sharp. I have a sharpener, and if they won’t sharpen, I don’t keep them. I have at least one pair in every room. I even own multiple pairs of fabric scissors and _sometimes use them to cut paper._ I don’t know how many times I got scolded as a kid for using the family black-handled scissors and forgetting to put them back, or got \*really \*in trouble for misusing Mom’s fabric shears. > [@MoodIndigo1](#): > > …I remember fantasizing about having a big bowl of candies on a coffee table in my living room. … I still fantasize about this, but haven’t yet found a candy bowl I like (that I trust the cats to not kill). My great-grandma had an open-bowl policy, but her daughter, my grandma, kept a bowl that kids were not allowed to touch. With a big heavy lid that went _ **“CLANGGG!!”** _ if you didn’t take it off just right, and stale candy. Not that I would know, of course. It looked like [this](http://i13.ebayimg.com/03/i/001/07/bc/574e_1.JPG), but in bright olive green with blue spatters. I want something… not that ugly. > [@salinqmind](#): > > …I spent my childhood “with my head stuck in a book”, and they were from the library, of course… My dad is a (now retired) librarian. He harrumphs at the whole idea of private ownership of books, but because I am now a grownup with my own house, I can buy as many books as I want, and keep them as long as I want, and find something to read at any time of day or night, so there. > [@Lynn\_Bodoni](#): > > Sea Monkey tank … I did get Sea Monkeys in college, though I kept them in a plain glass container of salt water. Then later, when I worked in a cubicle, I got an [Ecosphere](http://www.eco-sphere.com/sagan_review.htm). TOTALLY worth it. > [@Princhester](#): > > The resources to make stuff. I’ve always liked making things…there was always something we didn’t have and I couldn’t get and I couldn’t work around. Now I can have whatever shit I can find on the entire internets… And I have money. Ahh. This! This is the absolute best! Anything I want for any project I want! and because of eBay, I can usually afford it, too. When I was a kid, I memorized the aisles of our local hardware and dime stores… I’m sure the clerks thought I was planning to steal something, but I was just looking for interesting project-parts. > [@Lynn\_Bodoni](#): > > You are a prospective customer for [American Science & Surplus](http://www.sciplus.com/)… Curse you. ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2009, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-wanted-as-a-kid-and-now-have-as-an-adult/489877/80 "2009-03-20T20:38:21Z")
> [@](#): > > Every library needs a globe. I have a map of the world, put out by the National Geographic in the late 40s or early 50s. It was my grandfather’s, he got it as a bonus for being some sort of contributing member. I believe it’s 4’ x 6’. It takes up wall space, but not floor space. It’s big enough to be useful, as long as you only need political information of that time frame. I keep it around because I think it looks great, and it was my grandfather’s. Too many people declutter their heirlooms. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-wanted-as-a-kid-and-now-have-as-an-adult/489877.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-you-wanted-as-a-kid-and-now-have-as-an-adult/489877.md?page=5)