If you own a bedroom closet, I recommend looking through it, because next to all of that embarrassing clothing and your equally-embarrassing diary, you very well might find some delightful artifacts preserved from your outlandish childhood. The other day, upon returning home from college for a brief visit home, I did this very thing, and the results were mystifying indeed. I thought to myself, what are all of these horrible toys? Why was I given them? And what the hell are they still doing in my closet?

Although there was a cornucopia of nonsense, I was particularly offended by the following eight items:

A Transformer Which Doesn’t Really Transform into Anything

Left: A stegosaurus. Right: A robot. Not pictured: A decent toy.

This was the only Transformer I even owned, which can be attributed to the fact that it is 100% retarded. I think it’s supposed to transform into a stegosaurus-type animal (left), but when I try to make it look like one it doesn’t really have a head. Also, it can’t stand up and its body keeps falling apart. When you’re bored with the autistic headless stegosaurs, you can then turn it into a regular robot (right), but it still can’t stand up unless its resting against a wall and generally it just looks completely embarrassing. I really hate this Transformer.  

A Felix The Cat 1991 Calendar Jigsaw Puzzle

Combining two of my favorite passions, jigsaw puzzles and calendars, with Felix the Cat, who strikes me as being some sort of weird French rip-off of Mickey Mouse, this 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle from 1991 is the most random thing I own. I don’t understand why I’m in possession of this and I don’t understand what it’s doing in my bedroom closet. Come to think of it, I don’t really understand who the hell Felix the Cat is. I think it’s safe to say, however, that whoever he is, I could probably do without him. 

A Ghostbuster With a Missing Arm

I can’t imagine what sadistic game I was playing to have broken off the arm of this Ghostbuster, who’s name is Ray or Igon or something like that, but it probably involved throwing him against a wall and very possibly involved fire. Actually, approximately every single one of my childhood action figures is missing a major body part. If you put all of my action figures together, it would look like some sort of bizarre amputee ward at a cartoon hospital.

A Pose-able Ruler Who Just Graduated From High School, Or Possibly College

One would think I got this from graduating school, but I’m pretty sure I got it as a birthday party favor in the fourth grade from this guy named Lander. Back then it somehow made sense, but I question the rationale behind that now. The numbers on the ruler don’t actually correspond to any real unit of measurement, either, which completely makes me wonder what the hell I’m supposed to do with this. I guess I’ll just put it back in my closet and play it by ear from there.  

Something

I don’t know what this is, but I imagine I received a lot of enjoyment from it at one point in my life. The neon green cylindrical thing at the top can be raised up about an inch, but that doesn’t appear to do anything. Maybe this toy is broken, and maybe it was never meant to do anything. Neither scenario would really surprise me.

Darkwing Duck

Hahahah, remember Darkwing Duck? When I discovered Darkwing Duck in my closet, I shared a good laugh with myself. I don’t know how I acquired this Darkwing Duck figure, but I’m very delighted that I did.

Old-Style Rice Krispies Delivery Truck Replica

Oh, what glorious adventures of Rice Krispies delivery trucks from the 1930s I must have recreated as a kid with this fantastic toy! While other children were orchestrating legendary battles to the death between He-Man and Skeletor, I was apparently pretending to deliver Rice Krispies to pre-World War II corner shops. This Rice Krispies delivery truck confirms that I wasted most of my childhood.

An Insane Blue Monster With a Yellow Robot Living in His Back

If there was one toy kids wanted the most when I was a child, it was an insane blue monster with a yellow robot living in his back. Every year we would write a letter to Santa begging for one of these amazing little blue monster/yellow robot toys. The greatest thing about this toy is all the questions that are raised: How did the robot get inside the monster’s back? Does the monster know the robot’s there? And perhaps the biggest question of them all: What the fuck is a robot doing inside a monster’s back?

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