70s-child: Stuff I didn't have:

Saturday, October 08, 2011

Stuff I didn't have:

I got tons of stuff when I was a kid, and there wasn't much I didn't have, but the above was one of them. Well 4 of them. Whatever. I kind of wanted to get a set, but I wasn't really into Kiss except for "Beth", and quite frankly Gene Simmons scared the hell out of me, and I found their stage personas to be a little on the disturbing side. Plus, I was 10 and a little old for, well, dolls... These sell for quite a bit of money on ebay. A few years ago I considered purchasing a set, but personally I can think of a few better ways to spend a thousand bucks.

Don't expect much out of me for a quarter:

As a kid, I never got an allowance. That's something my folks weren't into. They were very generous with me, I never lacked anything, and usually when I asked for something they'd get it for me, but an allowance just wasn't going to happen. In '76, just before my folks split up, dad decided to give me a "job". It was sometime in January and the weather was pretty brutal, so he told me he'd pay me a quarter if I'd open the garage door for him when he got home so he wouldn't have to get out of the car and open it himself. We lived in a split level house (a raised-ranch), and the garage was in the lower level. The very first night, I was watching TV and I heard him pull in and stop at the garage door. I didn't want to leave my show, and it was pretty cold down there in the garage, and I was rather warm and cozy and comfortable sitting in front of the tv, so I basically ignored him. He honked. He honked again. And again. And again. Finally I heard him open the car door, open the garage himself, pull into the garage and slam the door shut. The way he slammed the door, I could tell he was angry and that I was in trouble. He came upstairs and just looked at me. Let's just say I lost my job that night, which didn't really bother me. A QUARTER??? I didn't get out of BED for that kind of money...