**LONG POST WARNING*** In case you've been living under a rock, or havent heard, toys r us has officially decided to close up shop. Now, it may not mean too much to some but for me it means a lot. Today we live in a world that with just one click we can get whatever we want. With a swipe of a thumb you can scroll through multiple products in seconds. We are disconnected more than ever, not from eachother, but from experiences. Please allow me to tell you what i mean and take back to the 90s. It was some time in the early 90s. The time where ice ice baby was hitting the radiowaves hard, and Super Nintendo was dominating the video game industry. I know, for 20 something year olds, that can be hard to believe, but, just trust me. It was also around the time of my 6th birthday. My uncle gave me the best surprise any six year old could ever ask for. A trip to the local toys r us AND told me that I can pick whatever toy I wanted. Going to toys r us alone was exciting in itself, but getting to pick ANYTHING I wanted at a toy store?! Now that was a dream come true. I can always remember the anticipation in the car ride. The excitement in the air walking through the automatic doors while one of those fans blew down from above right when you walked in. As a newly six year old child you really don't know what to look at or get when you are told "get whatever you want". I remember going in to isle after isle, passing x men action figures, g.i. joes, bikes, r/c cars, the latest video games, and soo much more. After scavenging through the store I stumble upon a toy! After what seemed like hours of looking I found what i wanted. A mechanical shark head on a stick that clamped down with the pull of the trigger on the other side of the stick. It was a toy you can probably find at a dollar store. With the sigh of relief my uncle was astonished at what i picked. With a look like "that's it?" On his face, but wasn't complaining because I could of done some damage lol. You see, that is not an experience you can get while "shopping online". That is an experience my uncle talks about to this day. A memory that has been talked about multiple times. I wanted to recreate that for my son. Also in hopes he would overlook at all the big and expensive things and find that one small thing that trumps all like I did. Boy was I wrong...lol As advice to other parents reading this, I just say give them that experience, one last time because there is no other look like my son gave in the video walking out with a toy that he picked out of a store full of toys!
