History Repeating :: From Sears to ThinkGeek
When I was a kid, my twin sister and I spent hours days weeks pouring over the Sears catalog circling every item we wanted for Christmas and our birthday (3 weeks after Christmas). By the end of the first week, we had to write a color key for family members because we usually circled everyfuckingthing and needed to specify:
- which ink color belonged to whom (this never worked, being a twin means getting the exact same thing in different colors),
- which ink color was most recent (we often discovered we had a hidden desire to take up guitar or BMX bikes upon our seven-thousandth perusal),
- which ink color indicated the most important items (by this time everyone usually had already done our gift shopping so also a waste of time),
- which ink color indicated the other twin did NOT want that item (heaven forbid I get the skateboard when I wanted the Atari!).
This tradition went on my entire childhood and it still makes me smile to think of it. I have explained the experience to my kids (girls, 11 and 13) trying to get them to understand but to no avail...
until last year.
Ah yes, it came in the mail. It was pitifully smaller than the Sears catalog, it had far less diversity, yet it became the Holy Bible in our home until well after the holidays.
The fights, the arguing over who should ask for what, would Great Gramma understand the newfound desire for bacon-motif products and canned unicorn meat, would it be better to mark the Totoro t-shirt a more greatly desired item than the night vision goggles?
Several months after the holidays, one of them finally hid the catalog from the other with the excuse that she was "hogging it" and it was never seen again.
The girls asked me yesterday when the new ThinkGeek catalog will be here. I said I wasn't sure if they were sending them every year and to go to the site.
"It's not the SAME, Mom!"
Oh, I know it's not the same ; )
#geekON
