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The beginning ...
While organizing, I found an unused Toys R' Us giftcard belonging to my 10-year-old son, to be known only as Racer Z. Since it was September and the card was from the past holiday season, Racer Z and I went to the store to cash it in and to have a bit of father/son time.
My wife and I have three kids in the house, Racer Z, little Racer A (a few months short of 4 years old), and Bubba G, the highly mobile 17 month old of the family. A fourth son who is 21 and lives on his own may make guest appearances in this blog from time to time.
Z and I had fun at the store, a nice distraction from the car problems, plumbing issues, and financial worries with which I had been coping that week.
At the end, we stopped in the Matchbox and Hot Wheels cars aisle (for simplicity, the blog is Daddy's Matchbox, although the pictured car is technically a Hot Wheels -- think of it like using "she" throughout the writing instead of the more clunky "he or she"). For fun and nostalgia, I flipped through the different cars...and then I saw it.
An aquamarine 1967 Chevelle SS. Beautiful.
At that moment, I realized I couldn't afford a real new car, I couldn't even afford to not pack a lunch for work, I couldn't afford virtually anything, but I could afford .99 cents ($1.07 with tax). This was a luxury I could justify.
I bought that car (aquamarine is my color), with my own money, thank you very much (and there is nothing wrong with paying with change), not with my son's giftcard. This was Daddy's car.
Funny thing about that...
Getting home, Z wanted to look at the Chevelle, and, as we entered the house, Racer A and Bubba G ran up to check things out. I explained this one car was Daddy's, and no, they couldn't hold it.
From that point on, the Chevelle (pictured at the top) became the Holy Grail of toy cars to my kids. It came up in conversation daily, and even Baby Bubba G seemed to plead to hold it, in a non-spoken word kind of way.
With kids, my experience has been no matter how careful I am, things, and I mean objects, get damaged in direct proportion to my wanting to keep them new. Whatever it is, it ends up with crayon on it. Children can not even be in a room and make crayon marks appear on things. I swear they don't even need crayons.
Same with food. Food flies from their mouthes with the precision of a blow dart to land on white shirts. Like culinary David Copperfields, kids get their hands and faces completely wiped down, yet impossibly, you look down, and there is a big patch of scrambled egg on your jacket as you head out to work, close up magic of the most amazing brand.
And while such events might make me sigh, they seldom make me angry -- the spontaneity, sincerity and "nowness" of kids is more than enough to balance it out. But sometimes, I just want a tiny, little something of my own.
I need to be absolutely clear -- my .99 cent Chevelle was not meant to torment my kids. They own tons and tons of cars, and can do without a single car.
Still, there was a deep, if not subversive, satisfaction of having that one car they couldn't touch.
And the idea was born.
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| One of about 832 piles of toy cars owned by my kids |
Every week, I will add a new Mattel Matchbox or Hot Wheels car to my private collection, and I'll share my stories of it with you -- a weekly diary, and a thematic peg on which to hang the passage of time. I will be posting by Wednesday every week, although I may kick in some Matchbox-related events between official postings.
As for the aquamarine Chevelle, of all the things I have purchased in my life, that little toy is perhaps the most satisfying purchase I have ever made. Welcome to Daddy's Matchbox.
For the purists,the '67 Chevelle SS 396 is Hot Wheels number 44 of the 2010 New Models collection.
Hot Wheels Chevelle photo: Andy Bindernagel; photo editing: Thomas Kildren
Matchbox and Hot Wheels are registered trademarks of Mattel, Inc.
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