Easy Bake Ovens and Shrinky Dinks and The Rest of My Childhood.

Jessie and I were just reminiscing about the time when we had Easy Bake and Shrinky Dink ovens, and the reason I'm posting this is because we found many similarities in the experiences we've had with both of these childhood necessities.

First off, Easy Bake Ovens. You'd follow the directions and mix the batter to a T, then you'd put the batter into the tray thing and into the oven. You'd wait for the designated time, but when the time is up, YOUR CREATION WOULD BE GONE. Absolutely missing without a trace. Just GONE. You'd then ask your mom and she'd be like, "It's not done yet," so then you'd wait some more time, but then you'd completely forget about the Easy Bake. When you did finally remember, you'd ask your parents and they'd say, "We ate it because we didn't think you wanted it anymore," but deep in your heart you'd know that the creation wasn't in your parents' bellies. It's as if there was a UFO hidden inside the Easy Bake Oven and just abducted it as soon as you put it in like their existence runs off of Easy Bake batter.

Shrinky Dinks. Sometimes these would work out, and sometimes they wouldn't. When they didn't it would usually have colors that you didn't add, or be shriveled in different places so that suddenly Cinderella was your wrinkly grandmother or Ariel, who was previously adjusting her hair was now flipping you off. Well, fuck you too, Ariel. Fuck you too. And then it got to the point where you'd literally lose the Shrinky Dink five minutes after it was made. It's like it kept shrinking even after you pulled it out of the oven. You'd be all like, "Belle, why do you hate me? Come back!"

KOOL-AID. This shit is the bomb. It's like crack. You'd have like 40 packets of Kool-Aid mix in your cabinet and your mom would pull them all out and say, "What flavor do you want?" and you'd pick one without even looking at the flavors and then your mom would be like, "Alright! We're having Mamma-Jamma Black Cherry Times Three Ninja Blood!" and it would be a crazy awesome Kool-Aid party because your face would be stained with the color of Kool-Aid you chose and it'd be loaded with sugar since you insisted on adding more, even though it was already enough to give you diabetes gahhhyeahKOOLAIDCRACKWHAAAA!!!!

Kraft Mac & Cheese. The one in the blue box. That shit's addictive by itself, but when it's in special shapes...dear Lord there's no stop to the rampage you wreak on that cheesy deliciousness. Especially the SpongeBob ones. You'd eat a spoonful, and you'd be able to tell which characters they were by the texture of the shapes. But then there'd be half a shape, so you'd refuse to eat those ones because they were mutated and didn't deserve to be in your stomach. When the non-mutated ones were eaten, you'd try to piece together the distorted fragments of dead dreams, and even if they didn't fit together, you'd eat it for the sick pleasure of eating tainted macaroni and cheese.

Jessie and I get each other. This is why we don't resent each other. Yet.