"to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from. -t.s. elliot I don't know why I have always wanted an Easy Bake Oven. No clue. Perhaps having grown up on the Wrong Side of the Tracks, it was the appeal of the Glamour toy. It certainly wasn't the cooking aspect; I was such a latchkey kid that I did a lot of cooking for myself. Mainly noodles and Ragu, or Swanson's chicken pot pies -but still. I was not craving time in a kitchen.
But I never received one as a present. And frankly, I'm not even sure that I ever told anyone that I wanted one. Maybe it never was written on a Wish List for Santa, but I cannot remember a time when I didn't want one. Perhaps in my fantasy thinking, someone would just know and get me one.
Never happened.
I was not scarred for life by it. As ya'll know, there were plenty of real-life events in my childhood to scar my psyche. The lack of an Easy Bake was not one of them.
Eventually I became an adult(-ish) person. And I have mentioned over the years that I always wanted an EBO. I even remotely entertained the idea that perhaps one day a creative, thoughtful boyfriend (or later Husband) would buy one and put it under the tree for me. I never asked for one outright, but subconsciously I pictured a sweet man giving me the Easy Bake Oven I never had.
Ya'll, I am not right.
As an aside, I will tell you something wonderful that The Husband did years ago that resembled this little fantasy. There is a Dr. Seuss book called Happy Birthday To You! about a Seussical place called Katroo where on your birthday all kinds of amazing stuff is done for You! Just for You! I loved it as a child. So happy and celebratory, and completely opposite of my entire childhood. It's not a widely known book, and we found it one day in a bookstore. I waxed all kinds of nostalgic about it to my husband. The next year on my birthday, that book was one of my presents, complete with a sweet inscription from said husband. It's one of my favorite presents ever, and I read it to the children on their birthdays at bedtime. I doubt my husband even realizes how special that was for me.
Moving on!
So here I am back in Stepford after a horrific time dealing with my mother suddenly, unexpectedly in ICU and her subsequent death, and all these swirling emotions. One Saturday morning we go to a yard sale as a family. And what to my wandering eyes should appear? A brand new, still in the box, Easy Bake Oven.
Of course we bought it for my daughter you see, but my inner little girl was sated. A wrinkle in the fabric of my life was smoothed. I do not pretend to know why, it just was.
The next day we made a chocolate-frosted cake from the still-unopened mixes included in the box. I knew from licking the batter that it would be perfectly hideous, so I didn't even have a bite of the finished product. That wasn't the point, and I knew that going in. I just wanted to have one. And I do. How did an Easy Bake Oven get on my cosmic To Do List? I've no idea. But now I can check it off the list. And I'm oddly thankful. Go figure.
