A Coke machine. Granted, it is currently non-functional except for being a very useful dust support in the garage. But when it is fixed, it will dispense the finest Coke products, as well as the finest adult pops (or sodas, depending on your region). It is a mid 70’s model, and will dispense both cans and bottles. It even still has the original buttons in it, including a tab button.
I also wanted to jump out of a plane. Which, funny enough, I sold this particular Coke machine to do. The same machine found its way back in my life when the person I sold it to got married and consolidated into one house. Seems that he had one too many machines, and asked if I wanted it back.
Skateboard ramp. Ostensibly I built it for my boys but, admittedly, they were 2 and 4 at the time and probably not quite ready for it…plus, I didn’t want it just sitting out there not getting used.
I got a Lite-Brite for my 18th birthday. I bought myself a Teddy Ruxpin a few years ago; I have such fond memories of playing New Kids on the Block tapes in my friends. It needs some fixing, and I need to find my New Kids on the Block tapes. When Halloween comes around the kids are threatened with loss of video games if they don’t give me their chocolate Tootsie Pops. Yeah, I know I could buy some whenever I want, but extortion makes 'em sweeter.
Rubber Duck bathroom? Check!
Pirate Flag out front? Check!
Blue Streaked Hair? Check!
Makeup? Check!
Tivo? Check! (counts, heard about it back when I was a senior in HS and wanted it desperately)
More than one pet at once? Check! Check! Check! Check! Check!
When I was a kid in the 70s all I wanted for Christmas was the Spiderman Web Shooter. I waited months for the thing. It was bascially the workings of a suction-cup dart pistol but it strapped to your wrist and after firing left a string attached from the dart to your wrist. Freakin awesome!!
I got one on Chirstmas day (I was 7) and played with it non-stop a few hours till my older sister started hassling me so I shot her with it. It hit her in the eye, she bawled like a little biotch, and dad immediately snapped the thing in two. I was devastated.
Fast forward 25 years and I found one on E-bay, bought it for $50, and covet it every day.
Now the only dilemma is if I want to invest time/effort to get it gratis or money.
I guess I could have aspired to become a doctor and gotten paid to touch women’s boobs. But something about associating it with work suggests it would kind of kill the appeal behind the concept… :dubious:
The ability to watch Star Wars any fricking time I want would’ve been the pinnacle of my life in 1977, and now it’s a reality.
Of course, I haven’t watched it since the re-release, but I could, damnit!
A denim jacket. I bought a couple from the GAP when they were in vogue in the late 90s. My parents refused to buy them for me or my sister during the 80s because they harbored a notion that “the jean jacket” was a tool of the devil meant to lead us down a path of drugging, teenage pregnancy and listening to too much Def Leppard.
They did relent on the acid wash jeans and letting us cut our hair into those femullets like the lead actress from Crocodile Dundee was sporting. I wish they’d been as stubborn on that as they were on the denim jackets.
Minor hijack:
If you don’t mind my asking, where/how did you get this? I’ve been thinking about getting something like that.
Back on topic:
A few years ago, in my mid thirties, a co-worker caught me walking out of Toys R Us with one of those electric race car track sets.
Her: Hi! Is that for a nephew’s birthday?
Me: Um, it’s for me.
Her: Oh…Well I think that’s great! Good for you.
Me:
When I was twenty-one, I bought a bad-girl black leather jacket with studs and metal zippers and …man - that jacket gave an Instant Rock Chick[sup]TM[/sup]-effect.
I felt like a fraud wearing it, and I sold it on E-bay a year later.
I know these aren’t objects, but when I was a kid I wanted them so so so much, and having them still makes me happy on a regular basis.
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.’
And I don’t go to bed until I’m sleepy. I used to spend hours lying awake, bored senseless, because my parents’ idea of the correct bedtime for a kid wasn’t the same as my body’s. Now, if I want to stay up till 5am, I do.
This. I’ve also stopped buying clothes just because they fit. If they don’t make me happy - forget it! Same thing with shoes.
I have horrible memories of looking like a garanimal reject in 8th grade because my mother “got a good deal” on 3 shirts and 2 pants that all had fuschia pink and bright green in them. . .
Yes, me, my husband, and brother in law have spent many hours playing Robotron, which is maybe the best game ever. We lost interest in Halo 2 and Morrowind for Robotron for a couple of months.
I also have a crapload of Legos now, which makes me very happy.
And I have a bicycle with gears! It’s red! And I’m tall enough for it!
