As Per Jordan's Request

As per the request of one of my dearest friends, JBush, the following post will be dedicated to her. Should I ever reach a fame status that would rival Chelsea Handlers, you bet your sweet coslopus she’s going to be my “Heather Longboobs McDonald”. These are the topics she’s suggested I write about, so here we go: Childhood toys.

Little did we know that the toys we had as a child would absolutely prepare us for adulthood. Allow me to give some examples.

Mall Madness

The premise of this game, which by the way takes a solid 30 minutes and 18 D batteries to set up, is to dash around the mall making purchases at each store, up to 10 total, without running out of money. The challenges are that the sales perpetually change locations, you will run out of money and have to go back to the bank to magically withdraw more from some endless account, and you can’t walk diagonally. What did this prepare us for you ask? Outlet shopping. If anyone has been to the outlet mall up 400, you can’t just willy nilly walk around up there. You need to go in with a plan. Where are the sales, what’s our gameplan for the stores we’re going to hit up, where are we going to park to maximize the shopping bag drop off in the car half way through. This shopping mall is not for the weak or half-hearted shopper. Maybe if you have a rascal scooter you can just wing it, but you better hope that little device is fully charged. Also, FYI, there’s no diagonal walking at this mall. Straight lines all the way down.

Tamagotchis

An egg shaped $20 keychain nightmare, the tamagotchi was quite the hit when we were little, and quite the life lesson maker as well. I will have to make a few broad assumptions about this game, since of COURSE I had the knock off version from Wal Mart. The premise was you had a pet, maybe a dinosaur, maybe a puppy, maybe a bird, you choose. This pet was equally as needy as a 15 year old girlfriend with unlimited texting. You had to feed it, water it, play with it, let it sleep, clean up it’s poop, the list was non stop. This “game” was fun for about 20 minutes. At some point, we all got board and let our pet die. But you can’t just end this game. No, you have to sit there for hours, days even, and watch your pet cry for help and food, live in its own excrement, whither away and die eventually. What life lesson did this teach us? Don’t just flippantly get a pet or have a baby. It’s a commitment. This is why when one of my friends declares they want a baby, I’m going to get them one of these little horror shows. You keep that freaking dinosaur alive for more than a week and you have my blessing.

Girl Talk and Dream Phone

Girl Talk: Let’s take a bunch of prepubescent 12 year olds and give them a board game themed around truth or dare splashed with a little fortune teller action. Should you not want to perform the dare, you had to put a red “zit” sticker on your face as punishment. Assuming you wanted to waste your zit stickers, which you probably didn’t. This amazing game prepared us for peer pressure and also adult acne. When faced with a challenging decision, I promise you every girl thinks “I’d rather do this than get a zit”.

Dream Phone: Take those same girls from the Girl Talk game, and let’s have them make “phone calls” to guys that are a) apparently seniors in high school and b) way out of their league. You would dial a number on a phone and have a hunky guys voice come over the line to tell you some detail about your secret admirer. These calls were private unless someone played a “Speakerphone!” card. Then your private love affair was over and everyone could hear. This prepared us for sexting. You’re not going to find someone our age sending sexy text messages. What if someone plays a speakerphone card? We all remember that level of embarrassment. Not going to happen. Also, should I EVER see the models that posed for the pictures of these hot throbs, I’m going to feel pretty exposed. I boarderline had phone sex with them.

Clue

This game has played the biggest role in my adult life. The premise is to find clues about the murderer, usually through the process of elimination. What did the murderer kill their victim with? Where was this taking place? Who did it? The skills learned from this game directly translate to real life, the day after getting wasted and passing out. You wake up and initially think “where am I?” Boom, Clue board game. Then, once you find your bearings, you think “Who is this?” Boom, Clue again. Then you Hansel and Gretel your way through the place you’ve landed, finding a shoe here, necklace there, collecting “clues” if you will until you can leave. I’m confident my parents didn’t know they were preparing me for this when they bought me this game, but it’s made me the successful drunken mistake maker I am today.