I just had one of my friends’ sons ask me if I’d ever heard of a Robo-Raptor. Heck no. Of course not. No way. I’m 28. That is like asking me if I wear womens clothing with regularity (that too is supposed to be a rhetorically implied negative). I haven’t looked at the latest toys for (mostly) boys in years. And I sure don’t know what their names are. I think this officially puts me over the threshold of ‘twenty-something’ to ‘curmudgeonly-old-guy’. I’m OK with nose piercings, tattoos, iPods and various technological changes, but can we PLEASE have the OLD Legos back? You know the ones that were not kits of 30 special parts to make the dino-crapto-saurus? Let imagination and creativity be the focus not lifelike plastic replicas of things that may or may not have looked like modern artistic interpretations?

I remember when we used to walk barefoot through the snow because we liked it that way and it put hair on your chest (or in the case of women it was preparation for childbirth). OK, that’s a lie. I don’t remember that. I do however remember creativity was encouraged by teachers instead of test taking skills and television had scary Skeletor and not pansy claymation construction workers with talking tractors. Kids need a little fear in their lives. Now the closest thing to Skeletor they have is Nicole Richie and Paris Hilton.