The Wonder Register

May 22nd, 2007 | Comments (4) | Trackbacks (0) |

It’s been a busy time for me lately. Graduation, job-hunting, moving back home, etc., have all kept me from blogging as frequently as I’d like. I’ll post about all that stuff in due time, but while you wait, here is an essay I wrote for the Des Moines Register. They’re seeking “a new group of Young Adult Contributors… to bring new voices and fresh viewpoints to the Register’s online site and our opinion pages,” and in addition, “those selected will get a blog at DesMoinesRegister.com/blogs and will be invited to the Register for a discussion of issues of interest to young Iowans.” I’ll let you know if I am selected. The following is my application essay:

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Recently I pulled the car to the side of the road and purchased a twenty-five cent cup of raspberry lemonade from a child entrepreneur. Sitting on the table beside the requisite cups and pitcher was a toy cash register. I assumed the toy was just for looks – a subliminal message of legitimacy to drive up sales – but when I paid with a dollar bill I could not have been more astounded. The girl pressed a button on the thing and the next five seconds can only be described as surreal. Surely time has inflated my memory of the incident, but I remember bells ringing, plastic pieces moving in perfect harmony, and a large container of cash whirring out from underneath the device. She coolly changed out my dollar bill, closed the wonder-register and politely said thank you. Frankly, I don’t even remember if the lemonade was any good; I couldn’t stop thinking about the toy cash register.

It hasn’t always been this way. When I was a kid, anything that mom and dad didn’t mind breaking was a toy. In fact, something that broke was preferable – two toys for the price of one. An enormous rock in the yard was the tip of massive underground castle. A fallen branch of a tree was a bazooka (boys will be boys). The only real toy I actually remember having was the set of successively smaller colored rings on the spindle, and even those presented a world of possibilities: donuts in the morning and jewelry after dinner. I can’t help but wonder if, as toys become increasingly realistic, children are slowly losing the ability to use their imagination. More realistic does not equal superior. Perhaps it would be better to send them out into the yard for the afternoon. Their imaginations won’t let them down.