april is the cruellest month, as today's 52-degree high attests. I took the whole family, including Wolf Dog, to an outdoor party for which we had to wear heavy jackets against the wind. I was in flannel-lined jeans and an ear band, wimp that I am. Wolf Dog just held onto his loosening undercoat for another day.

As a result of the kids' accommodations at this party, Squinx wants us to buy a bounce house. Were it not for the maintenance I am sure some of our neighbors would have already done just that. It's the mildew that kills. Roll that thing up when the humidity's high, and it'll stink so bad on unfurling you may as well have stashed it in the Everglades.

We learned this the easy way stopping by a church festival where the vestry had chosen to buy a bounce house rather than rent every year. Squinx came home smelling as if she'd spent a week with a particularly unsanitary troop of Boy Scouts.

If homeowners ever manage to store these things without their turning green, they will become the trampoline of the 21st century.

as a kid, my toy tastes were more compact. I collected Matchbox cars, those nearly indestructible, palm-sized metal reproduction automobiles. One thing I knew about a visit to Woolworth's with Mom was that I always got to take home a new Matchbox. Naturally, the toys aisle was the first place I went upon arrival, and Mom knew I'd still be there by the time she got done shopping for whatever it was mothers of the 1960s bought at Woolworth's.

Matchbox had its competitors, of course. Mattel's Hot Wheels showed up in the '60s to challenge the British monopoly, and did an impressive job of capturing the single-digit-age boy imagination. I thought they were a tad on the cheesy side, with their flame jobs and inevitable rally wheels. But they had a broader selection than Matchbox, which filled out its line with mostly four-door sedans and station wagons. No muscle cars, please, we're British.

It was the wheels on Hot Wheels that disturbed me. Whereas Matchbox seemed to nail their narrow, plastic tires on with a solid axle front-and-rear, Hot Wheels felt more as if they'd pinned theirs in place. The axles flexed, which lent some realism to the design (they had suspension!). But you couldn't push them as hard: They'd bottom out and grind to a halt. Furthermore, the functionality of sprung suspension seemed gratuitous. Why would a two-inch automobile with no occupants need a smooth ride?

Hot Wheels were California's answer to staid, English Matchbox, the rock-n-roll surfer with racing stripes showing up at Prince Philip's wedding. A boy studying the pegboard at Woolworth's could not reach past that chrome-finish Camaro. The stiff-necks in London must have looked at it and figured it for an Italian concept car. "Ramp up our Studebaker production line, Nigel. We'll suffocate this upstart with our relentless conventionality."

By 1970, Matchbox seemed to have run out of inspiration. They wouldn't go for the swoopy Corvette; but you could have anything Nash ever produced, and tow trucks with little plastic hooks that wouldn't pull anything more than an inch before popping off.

the biggest disappointment for a boy was the other toy car line, the Corgi. You never wanted one of those for a gift, not after the first one you brought home. They came in cellophane-paneled display boxes, not the blister packs of Matchbox fame, and they were kept on a shelf above the other little cars, obviously intended for your serious older brother.

What made Corgis most intolerable was their scale. They were about 2/3 larger than Matchbox, and they wouldn't fit in the slots of your storage box. On whatever play surface, they menaced your entire collection with their bulk. "I am the Datsun 240Z, and I dwarf even your bread-delivery van. Bow down to the mighty Corgi!"

Furthermore, unlike Matchbox, Corgis didn't even bother to move their steering wheels to the American side for export. It was like some dyslexic megalomaniac's idea of a toy.

Beyond these brands, there was some other dinky model that came three to a package, with no interior or resemblance to any particular brand of actual automobile. They could be flattened with a hammer, which was exactly what you wanted to do to them because they were so cheap-looking. A distant relative might send you these, on hearing you "liked little toy cars." And you'd have to write a thank-you note, your first compulsory fake-gratitude experience. "Dear Great Aunt Hattie: Thank you for the generic, squeaky-wheeled car-oids. They have a special place of honor at the bottom of my sandbox. Love, Rittenhouse."

What finally killed put Hot Wheels over the top -- and here is where their high-tech suspension came into its own -- was the Hot Wheels track. Those orange, flexible, probably toxic strips advertised on Saturday-morning TV where you and your wide-mouthed friends would be amazed at how fast they let your Hot Wheels zing through loop-de-loops and "esses." Matchboxes just couldn't keep up. Their iron axles ground to a halt at the bottom of every speed ramp, and you'd have to shove them through the loop, like spaghetti through a straw. I suppose that would get them approval from the Consumer Product Safety Constriction today, as even simulated fast-moving cars might inspire youngsters to fantasize about driving upside-down.

all of which adds up to my latest tactic for avoiding the tax return, due Monday. It's not mine; it's my parents. As you may know, Dad passed away in October and Mom isn't up to filling out complex forms. Fortunately, TaxCut allows me to file more than one return with the same software, and I found the records intact and the filing simple. They'll get it all back, which is appropriate in the year of one's death, though I don't think it's automatic.

This year, my family and my parents paid no income tax. I wonder who did?

Posted by: Michael Rittenhouse at 08:45 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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