A project that Kathy is doing with some of her students at school brought back memories of one of those "loss of innocence" events in my life. I was in the second or third grade, and I guess I should have known better, but I had seen that comic book ad a hundred times that offered a life-size Frankenstein monster. "Seven feet tall", it said! I had read and reread the description in the ad:

Just imagine your friends shock when they walk into your room and see the "Monster" reaching out--bigger than life--Frankenstein, the original man-made monster, that creation of evil genius that terrorized the world. A giant 7 feet tall, his eyes glow eerily as his hand reaches out--as aweful [sic] and sinister as the wildest nightmare. Yes--Frankenstein is 7 feet tall, in authentic colors on durable polyethylene, and so lifelike you'll probably find yourself talking to him. Won't you be surprised if he answers? Comes complete with eyes that glow even in the pitch dark for a special chilling thrill."

I sat there reading that ad over and over, like Calvin in a Bill Waterson comic strip, fantasizing about the havoc I would wreak with a 7-foot monster under my control. It was only $1 (plus 35¢ shipping). How could they possibly sell a monster so cheap? Maybe they couldn't control him and they needed to offload him on anyone willing to take him. I pondered this for weeks, months. Finally, I decided to do it. I got $4 a month for allowance (even in the seventies this really wasn't enough, Mom, but I'm not resentful...). So with some help obtaining a money order, I sent off for my very own monster.

After a few days, I was camped out near the mailbox at the time when the mailman was supposed to arrive each day. I wondered if the monster--who was seven feet tall according to the ad--would come in an unimaginably huge box. Or would a special armored truck arrive with armed guards who would unload a large cage draped in black cloth concealing my own pet monster?

Days turned into weeks, and eventually I stopped waiting for the mailman quite so often. About the point I almost forgot about my order, Mom announced, "Oh you got a package."

"WHERE? WHERE IS IT?" I raced to the kitchen where she indicated all the mail was, looking for a large box or a cage draped in black. Instead, I saw a rather ordinary looking 8 1/2 x 11 envelope. I opened it to reveal a folded plastic--plastic as in something almost like plastic wrap--POSTER. A poster? The ad said he was "reaching out." Well, he was...but in a two-dimensional sense. The glowing eyes? Glow-in-the-dark dot-like stickers that I had to stick on the monster myself. Authentic colors? Well, the ad in the comic book had better colors. Mine was a green tinted, black and white, Lon Cheney-ish Frankenstein monster on plastic. And as long as it hung on the back of my bedroom door (the only place my mother would let me hang it) it never lost the wrinkles from being shipped in the envelope. This monster would not terrorize the world. And he certainly wouldn't talk back to me.

The monster hung on my door for a few months. I don't really remembered what happened to it in the end. I don't remember getting rid of it. But I do remember looking upon it with scorn, knowing I'd been suckered. I'd lay awake at night in the dark, seeing only those two stupid glow-in-the-dark eyes looking at me. Laughing at me. Did he speak? Well, maybe only to say, "Hey? What'd you expect for a buck, kid?"

I know what you're thinking. You're asking, "Well what kind of stupid child were you?" Yeah, I know. But look at that ad. They're advertising in comic books, read by kids with already over-active imaginations. I was a child! I believed in flying reindeer and that unknown phenomena could be explained by "magic." I read books where animals wore clothing and talked to one another. So did you. That ad was designed to be misleading to a child with any kind of imagination. Yes, I know the ad states explicitly that the monster is ON "durable polyethylene. But I didn't know what polyethylene was. I don't think I'd know what it was now had I not bought a Frankenstein monster on the stuff when I was seven-years-old.

You'd think that I would have lost all innocence with that experience--that I would have learned more about the ways of the world and faced the rest of my life with the outlook of a hardened cynic. But no. Children are resilient. Before I would lose my naivete, I would first have to order that 100 piece toy soldier set that came in its very own FOOT LOCKER! For only $1.25!!