Everyday Life: Where Are My Toys?!

On Thursday, I will go back to Greenhills to finally buy a toy as a Christmas Gift for my nephew.  For an ordinary individual this may be a bit of hassle, but for me it's a pleasurable thing to do.  I always find delight in searching and even window-shopping for toys because as young kids, we had a lot of them.  And to note that the 80s and early 90s were the era of the kickass toys, so much so that toy companies are having re-issues of the previous toylines we used to enjoy back then.  Everytime I go to buy a toy for my nephew, I am always reminded of that toy collection we had.  I used the term "we had" because my mother hid them away sometime in 1990, and worse she forgot where she hid them.  We've been trying to extract from her where she hid them but all our efforts were futile. She really can't remember. 

 

We were not rich but my father always tried to give us what we always wanted.  But we got what 

I used to have this G1 Soundwave 

we wanted about 90 percent of the time.  Probably, the most precious toys we had were the Generation 1 issues of the Transformers.  Unlike present issues which are generally composed of mediocre plastic, old Transformers figures were a combination of plastic and die-cast metal.  My favorite was my old Decepticon Soundwave figure.  Next to the Megatron action figure which was actually limited due to its violent gun transformation, this is probably the next best regular action figure.  He transforms into a tape deck and from his chest, he ejects cassete tapes which transform into robotic animals like Lazerbeak(eagle), Ravage(panther), Ratbat(bat) and the robot twins Rumble and Frenzy.  My elder brother used to have a Galvatron figure, all original and imported from the States.  Aside from these two we also had a die-cast Optimus Prime which today could fetch for around 13k pesos, an Ultra Magnus which is very rare to find nowadays, Aerial Bots Silverbolt, Skydive and Fireflight, a small Swerve, and Constructicon Scavenger. All in all these haul could value as much as 30-40K in specialty shops.

We used to have one of these Galvatron figures too

Aside from the Transformers, we had Afterburner and Condor form M.A.S.K and their small action figures, a bunch of G.I. Joe figures which we used to interchange bodyparts to give an illusion that we have so many of them, Ghostbusters (2 editions of Peter Venkman, Ray Stanz, Ghost Popper gun) and some of their monsters, (X-Cop, H20 Ghost, Dracula), Masters of the Universe (He-Man, Prince Adam, Beastman, Merman, RamMan, Hordak) figures, Silverhawk Quicksilver, Rambo characters, Tigershark Mako, a bunch of Ninja Turtles and villains figures, MicroMachines, three of the Voltron lions, two of  Visionaries action figures and my favorite Thundercats figures (all first edition heroes plus Hachiman, Snowman, Vultureman, Monkian and a Berbil).  That is as far as i can remember and that is the inventory of what was hidden and was never found again.

Among the survivors...

It is a bit of a consolation that some still remained intact and are present up to this date.  It is good that we still have all six of our Dino-Riders including the T-Rex and the Diplodocus, plus some loose Torosaurus parts;  and the gang of WWF action figures. That's only what was left of the whole toy collection.  Since 1995, I've been searching every corner, every cabinet , every big drawer and every receptacle possible for these toys but to no avail.  I was thinking that maybe she hid them in our Bodega but I'm hesitant to go there due to fear of snakes and it's also a mess to go there.  That was my only hope. Even my nephews have carried on the search for these long lost toys.

Last week, my mother finally decided to have that bodega cleaned. But as fate would have it, all the mess had been thrown away, all the boxes and sacks had been sorted and still no sight of these toys.  It was really frustrating.  I felt like Lauro Vizconde, losing a long-fought case. Now, where really are those toys?

It looks like I would have to buy my nephew one of the newer editions of Soundwave (not that bastardized Revenge of the Fallen version.....Michael Bay sucks!) and probably raise another 3K pesos later to buy myself the re-issue of that old Soundwave which i saw at GreatToys in Greenhills to put an end to my regression.  But seriously, I would choose that whole toy collection over a naked sexy lady infront of me anytime.