Racetrack

The orange plastic two-lane drag strip began at the starting gate, which was clipped to the book shelf above the bed. The track dipped steeply down to the manufactured pillow berm, leveled out to a horizontal straight away, over the foot of the bed to the floor, under the shoe tunnel, out the sliding door to the patio, through the loop-de-loop, to the jump ramp and the finish flag gate, and then the wall.

The vehicles were each chosen from our own personal collections. My racer was a pick up truck. It was the fastest one I had. My friend had a Mustang, or perhaps a Charger. Both, of course, were Hot Wheels.

And while his cars were always faster than mine, both his and mine were always Hot Wheels, never Matchbox. When your entire world revolves around having the fastest pocket-sized race car, you very quickly realize that Matchbox cars are shitty.

To mothers and fathers and older sisters with untrained eyes, they were indistinguishable. And when grandma gave you new cars for Christmas, you'd pray to the baby in the manger that they were the right ones. Of course, you'd smile and say "thank you" even if they were Matchbox, but you'd give that extra-big hug if she bought you Hot Wheels.

They were just better. Better construction. Better design. Based on actual cars. Matchbox was always fakey and crappy and chinsey and wonky. Hot Wheels had hot rods with fat tires and well-oiled axles.

So we would race. My Fastest Hot Wheels against his. His always won.

Eventually, my cars got put away. At some point I played with them for the last time, and put them away for the last time, and I bet I didn't even realize what I was doing at the time. I had an official Hot Wheels case, and each car had it's own berth, and one day I snapped the lid shut on the cars and never opened it again.

I'm relatively confident that they are in a box in my mom's garage. Or at least I hope so. They recently moved and purged a bunch of stuff. And now I'm a little sweaty and twitchy at the thought that they got tossed out with the bathwater...

I'll have to call to confirm, I suppose. Perhaps I even have them here. I don't think so though.

All of this came up, however, just tonight. The missus was relating the latest events from their adventure at the park. Turns out, the Boy, who appears to be more BOY than I ever was, likes little cars and took one from another little boy.

Actually, I was told that the Boy took a "Matchbox" car from another boy, which caused me some concern and a small urge to go find him some superior Hot Wheels. I mean, why would he bother with Matchbox?? But then I inquired and learned that it was "just a small car, and really what's the difference?"

And really, the difference is, if I owned a box full of Matchbox cars, I wouldn't give a shit where they were. Unfortunately, my missing Hot Wheels are causing me to develop a nervous tic.

I think I'm going to go look in the garage and see if they are out there...