Counter Culture Adam Matcho
And the Poor Shall Inherit the Toys
“Remember, these aren’t for you,” my father said as he unloaded toys from the shopping cart. “They are for poor kids who don’t get anything for Christmas.”
My two younger brothers and I watched the toys we had just handpicked as the things we wanted most conveyor along to the cashier who stoically scanned and bagged them, presumably for some unloved child living on the streets, sleeping with rats.
“You know how lucky you are?” my father would say. “Some kids don’t have half of the things you three do. They live in cardboard boxes and find their dinners in a dumpster.”
Although mealtime didn’t sound so great for these homeless children, my brothers and I did not enjoy handing our Christmas haul over to them, even in the name of charity.
“I hate those stupid, poor kids,” Carter said. “They always get the best gifts.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Aren’t they used to being poor yet? They won’t even know how to work this stuff.” As if the function of a Thundercat was somehow beyond the comprehension of most people.
My youngest brother, Christopher, didn’t complain as much. He just walked behind us, occasionally letting out small, weeping sounds. When the Mr. Potato Head he wanted was bagged, his breath became staggered and he crumpled into a ball on the floor, crying into his folded arms.
“Get up right now,” my father said from the side of his mouth. He hated public displays of disobedience. He would whip his head in all directions, clearly embarrassed, and tell Christopher of the beating awaiting him at home if he didn’t get up right away.
Christopher rose, mumbling the word “potato” between snotty inhales.
We weren’t spoiled children by any means. In fact, we were always told that we were poor, apparently a step or two above the garbage-eaters of the world. So while we were impoverished enough to only get new things on birthdays and Christmas, we were wealthy enough to hand over everything we wanted to other kids.
With a father working rotating shifts for the Air Force and a mother working five days a week in a grocery store, there was not much time to Christmas shop. And because my parents had some reservation about making friends, there was nobody they could ask to watch their three hyperactive boys, ranging from ages four to nine. So my parents were forced to take us with them and devised the toy donation story as a way to do it right in front of us.
Every year it was the same: my parents would periodically set money aside for Christmas gifts — this involved lots of overtime for my dad and daily coupon-cutting for my mother. They would take us to an affordable department store, somewhere like Hills or K-Mart, where we would point out all the things we wanted from Santa. Then my parents would buy these gifts and claim they were for the less fortunate.
“If you guys like this stuff, then other little boys will like it too,” my father said. This did not console us.
“But I would like that He-Man castle,” I said.
“You’ve got a lot of nerve. What about the poor kids?” my father said as he placed Castle Greyskull into the shopping cart.
