The wonder that was Lego
By the time I was 12, I had amassed a gargantuan collection of build-it type toys. Lincoln Logs, Lego, Erector Sets, etc. I had a 30gal kitchen trash can filled with Lego’s, which I’d joyfully dump out on the living room carpet. You can’t truly create if you can’t SEE all the pieces, right? I built all sorts of things, from space ships, to cars, to planes, to large publicly traded technology corporation headquarters high-rises … and stuff. Then I’d usually take them out back and strategically place firecrackers or other incendiary devices into random openings. My creations would disintegrate in a spray of extruded plastic, and back into the can they’d go. Ahh, the glee of recycling.
The only problem with toys like that was Saturday mornings. Vacuum day. Vroom vroom goes the vacuum. Rattle rattle go all the Lego bits which were, to that point, happily embedded in the carpet. Mom just looooved that. Oh yeah, we’d just laugh and laugh about toys bought with hard-earned money being sucked mercilessly into the void that is a vacuum bag. Ok, no, not really.
The other thing I used to do was take stuff apart. Christmas and birthdays were always about the same:
1) Wait anxiously for grandparents and that uncle guy to show up.
2) Open gift, turn item over and over to determine make, model, and basic aerodynamic properties.
3) Mumble something resembling “Thank you” while reaching for next gift.
4) Repeat 2-3 until gift supply is exhausted.
5) Identify all gifts which contain buttons, wires, or use electrical current.
6) Retire to bedroom with said gifts and small screwdriver kit.
If it had a wire or batteries in it, I opened it up. I wanted to know how it worked. I wanted to know if I could break, then rebuild it from scratch. Mostly, I just wanted to know if it contained any parts that may be used in the small thermonuclear device I was secretly building in the basement.
Never did finish that one. Damn.