I brought Red Hair Girl to the new Lucky Oven Bakery this morning, which has about 20 of these toy ovens mounted on one wall. My parents did not approve of plastic toys like these--we always had tasteful, educational toys.
They taught me something all right. They taught me envy.
I envied all the girls in the neighborhood who had Easy-Bake Ovens, and Barbies, and portable record players that played 45s, and comic books, and who got to watch daytime TV and eat Twinkies and bologna sandwiches, while I had to memorize Shakespeare sonnets, eat leftover lamb-and-garbanzo bean stew in the school cafeteria, wear linen dresses, and other improving stuff like that.
I liked those things well enough, but I've always wished my parents had given me both worlds:
why couldn't we have watched Death in Venice AND Bugs Bunny?
I've made up for that imbalance since.
They taught me something all right. They taught me envy.
I envied all the girls in the neighborhood who had Easy-Bake Ovens, and Barbies, and portable record players that played 45s, and comic books, and who got to watch daytime TV and eat Twinkies and bologna sandwiches, while I had to memorize Shakespeare sonnets, eat leftover lamb-and-garbanzo bean stew in the school cafeteria, wear linen dresses, and other improving stuff like that.
I liked those things well enough, but I've always wished my parents had given me both worlds:
why couldn't we have watched Death in Venice AND Bugs Bunny?
I've made up for that imbalance since.
