Nine Point Nine Five

When I was younger I would devise ways to earn money. I would write up lists that would include a chore and then an appropriate price that such a service deserved. Lists were normally created based on a set amount of cash (normally $2 or so) and then each chore was weighted so that all chores for the week added up to that total. A list would look something like this:

• Take out trash - $0.40
• Dust living room - $0.35
• Rake leaves - $0.25
• Etc…

My entrepreneurial spirit was always for gain toward some new game or toy. Not only chores were part of my repertoire. Thankfully for me and my cousins, the drunk down the street threw all his Budweiser (ick) cans into the woods below his house. We would frequently go down there and spend hours crushing cans and bagging them for redemption at the aluminum place. For the better part of two years we were intimately aware of the current price of aluminum scrap. After a summer and a half of redeeming cans from our unfortunately addicted neighbor, he caught on to us and cleaned up all the cans and redeemed them for himself. I was surprised that he did so because there were a lot of cans. It’s would’ve taken an 18-wheeler to haul all the cans away. I don’t know how he moved them all without us seeing it happen.

Well, where I am going with this has fallen apart. The whole point of my above tangent is that I would try to scrape together a few bucks here and there so that I could buy something I wanted.

During the years of 1989 through 1991 the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were HUGE. I used to get up 45 minutes before I had to wake up for school so that I could watch the cartoon on a fuzzy Fox affiliate. We didn’t actually get the channel but I found a way to make the station come in via our VCR just enough so that it was watch-able. I desperately wanted the action figures and even in 1989 the figures cost upwards of five bucks. When you are 11 years old that’s a bunch of cash. I was determined to scrape together the money to buy a Donatello action figure. I liked Donatello because he was the smart one, plus the bo staff that he used was easily recreated in my wooded homeland. Also, chicks dig guys with bo staff skills.

I don’t recall how, but I eventually scraped up the cash to buy myself a Donatello, but I did. I had to wait until we made a trip to Altoona so that I could go to the toy store where the mother of my friend Stacy worked. Employee discount! I got my Donatello action figure that day and I was ecstatic. When I got home I sat in my room and set up action sequences for him. I made barricades out of Lincoln Logs and stacks of pennies. I tied a string from my curtain rod to my bed lamp so he could ride down it like a zip line using his bo as a rail. I had tons of fun that afternoon. I fell asleep with all my gear in place, Donatello poised on top of the curtain rod, waiting to make his escape in the morning.

My mother woke me from dreams of fighting Oroku Saki in the sewers of NYC by opening my door and announcing, “What is that smell??”

Seeing the thick black smoke rising from behind my head I turned in horror. Donatello had ridden the zip line to his inevitable death at the hands of the red hot lamp that was attached to my bed. His shell rested up against the metal (??) enclosure of the light bulb. As I pulled him from the lamp his shell pulled apart. Some of his body metled to the lamp, some of him clutched in my hand, all of him connected by strands of gooey melted plastic stretching and sagging as I looked on in horror.

I was crushed. I had so much fun playing with that action figure that day and now 12 hours into ownership my dreams had been dashed by this 1980s era unsafe metal lamp. Why, oh why, hadn’t I tied the string to the plastic 1970s Steelers lamp?

Over the next few days I still played with the melted Donatello. His shell still showed the effects of the incident. A large hole surrounded by plastic porcupine-like quills was his new defense rather than a shiny green shell. Thankfully that Christmas my parents bought me the whole set of Turtles along with a villain. I still have the figures amongst my toys in the attic of my parents house. Whenever I go there and I’m looking through the boxes of toys from bygone times I’ll occasionally come across one of the green guys or some of their gear. Every time I see them, I can’t help but think of Donatello and the joy and horror I experience on that day.

Do any of you have stories of tragedy from your childhood? I’ve had a few. They build character. So here’s to the summer of 1989, child labor, recycled beer cans, melted plastic and all.

PS: The title of this post is an obscure reference to the material discussed here. Bonus points to the first person to figure it.