Little mingo was like any other girly girl who grew up loving dolls. I was very much attached to Barbies, just like millions of other little girls. I had tons of Barbie dolls, and a Barbie house, and a Barbie car, and a suitcase, and even a motorized jeep. Man, that thing was awesome. My mom used to charge that thing up and I'd hop on and ride it all over the backyard and sidewalks. It was bubble gum pink and white and cool as hell. So little mingo thought. This one is kind of how mine looked, except for the "floodlights" on the back of the jeep.
Another thing I loved was my pink Barbie suitcase. That thing was amazing, I had it for years. It was basically like a modern day rolling hard cover suitcase, except when you opened it up, it became like a travel-sized house on the inside! There was a pullout bed that opened up into a bathtub, and revolving hangers inside a clothes closet, and there were working drawers and the lights turned on! After batteries were included, of course. That suitcase was freakin awesome. It was one of the few Barbie items I never ever got tired of, and I believe the only one to make the move from Texas to Illinois when we moved. I can't believe I found this picture of it online!!
Another doll-type toy I deeply connected with were my glow-worms. I don't know if anyone remembers these, but they were basically dolls with a plush body. The face was plastic, and when you squeezed them the faces lit up. They resembled a cross between what a tightly swaddled baby looks like and the segmented body of a worm. They sound odd, and to be honest a little freakish, but my glow-worms were my ROCK. I went to sleep with them every night, a large glow-worm and a baby-sized glow-worm.
Little mingo's fave was like the blue one. I'm fairly positive the glow worm I had never had an expression like the green one there. If it had, I'm certain we never would have bonded. He's looking at me as if to say, "Hey, baby, how you been doin? Why don't you stay by my place tonight? C'mere and give big daddy a squeeze..." EW. Creepy.
One toy in particular fostered my early love for jewelry. It took a little bit or searching to find what the junk these things were called, but eventually I did: Crayola Creations, Joolz Magic Rocks. I was asking my mom if she remembered these things using this explanation: "Hey mom? Do you remember these rock things that eventually turned into jewels, and then I had these plastic animals that the jewels went inside to create the body?" After blank stares, I realized my succinct description was not going to work. I was astonished I was able to find these things at all, all except for the animals.
I also found this lovely diagram to explain how the miraculous change from rock to gem takes place:
You basically put the ugly rocks into the magic diamond-shaped revealer, added water, and hey presto! Instant gems. My particular set of Joolz didn't have an option to make jewelry exactly, which is where the animals come into play. The idea for creating the animals was similar to that of a cell phone case. It's basically a shell, and it opens to fit the phone snugly inside, and then you snap it shut. Beautiful. The animals operated akin to this. My animal cases were comprised of sparkly pink plastic, and you opened them up to fit the transformed Joolz inside. My favorite was a cat that had a heart shaped face. So sweet.
Ok, one last one that I was completely obsessed with: LITE BRITE. I was ADDICTED to that thing!! There was something about creating vivid pictures surrounded by that soothing glow of light that instantly attracted me. Sure, the hundreds of teeny multicolored plastic bulbs you had to attach to the lights became easily lost. And most often, unless you followed a specific pattern, your pictures were nothing more than glowing jumbles of colored crap. But all that didn't matter, because the Lite Brite was awesome. 'Nuff said.
I was just like this little kid, playing with my Lite-Brite in the dark, intent on my glowing creations. Doubtless destroying my eyesight in some way. Did I mention I'm nearly blind? I don't blame YOU, Light Brite. Never you. You brought only joy into my life.
I remember when my Light Brite went missing one day. TO THIS DAY I BRING UP THIS DEVASTATING EVENT TO MY MOTHER. One day I came home, ready and raring to get to work with my Light Brite. The creative juices were flowing, I was going to make a freakin MASTERPIECE, dammit!! But my Light Brite was nowhere to be found. After an extensive search that steadily grew more panicked by my lack of success in locating my toy, I finally decided to ask my mom, unaware of the heartbreak that was coming. She had thrown it away. It was gone. GONE. In vain I continued to look for it, disbelieving that my own mother could be so heinously cruel as to throw away my favorite toy. But all I ever found were a few stray plastic bulbs. I never fully got over the loss of my Lite Brite. I like to think that somewhere, some random child found my Lite Brite and fell in love with it too, and that it's been passed on to generations of children since then. Wait, no I don't. Keep your filthy paws of my Lite Brite. That's MY Lite Brite, bitch! I'll remove your thumbs with a corkscrew!! Bitch. Yeah. Told you.
