[typing]
Childhood is strange.
Strange enough to make you question whether or not it really happened.
It's full of awkward new experiences,
bizarre conversations,
and enough unusual perspectives to make you wonder if half of it was real.
Then you run across something at a thrift store or online, and you go "Huh!"
"So I *wasn't just making that up!"
Take for example Waterful Ring-Toss by Tomy in 1976.
I stumbled into this particular example at a local Goodwill several years ago,
and instantly some long-forgotten part of my brain
bolted awake and about coughed up a lung.
All of sudden, I *knew* that I had this as a kid,
that I played it entirely too much for my own good,
and that I now questioned whether or not I was crazy for having done so.
Tomy Waterful Ring-Toss
is a handheld tabletop game that requires the use of water to work.
Otherwise, it's just a dry container filled with air and little plastic rings.
Sure, you can play the game without any water,
but that's just about as enjoyable as shaking out the last few Cheerios
stuck in the folds of the plastic bag at the bottom of a box of cereal.
But once you fill this beast up with water,
it transforms into a finely tuned machine
of childhood mental engagement.
Or at least that's the idea.
Really, it's *just* interesting enough to shut up a five-year-old on a short road trip,
at least until they have to pee
or the container spills onto the back seat,
whichever comes first.
The latter of which was quite likely if you'd lost the cap that goes over the filling hole,
like I have with this one.
Waterful Ring-Toss is less of a game and more of a test of skill.
And patience. Lots of patience.
Because water and floaty rings don't exactly make
for movements of precision and calculation.
I guess you could say that success is a complete "toss up"
that really puts you through the "ringer."
But, oh, "water" relief once you finally win!
You simply push in the plastic button
and the plastic rings will be shot upward inside the plastic container,
where the goal is to secure them onto plastic spikes.
It's a ring-toss carnival came in a portable form factor,
and it's actually pretty genius, in a way.
It doesn't require batteries,
there are no electronic parts or anything mechanical that can jam up,
there wasn't a pile of pieces to lose, and most of all, it was cheap.
So at least in terms of children's games and games on the go,
this was automatically better than LCD games,
electromechanical handhelds,
jigsaw puzzles and travel-size board games.
Well, "better" from the perspective of parents who had less to worry about,
other than the risk of spilling water.
And, hey, if you were a kid with nothing else–
and I mean NOTHING else to play–
then this was freakin' awesome.
If anything the endearing little noises it made when using it
made the whole thing worthwhile.
[fart noises]
[laughing]
[farts and laughs]
[fart]
And then there was the thrill of finally getting all those rings onto the pegs that was...
...negligible.
But, hey, as a kid, it was something to accomplish and occupy yourself with for a while.
And that was really all that five-year-old me wanted.
At least until my curiosity got the best of me
and I swiped my dad's screwdriver to take thing apart to see how it worked.
Ah, yes, just as I suspected:
magic!
So I know these things existed and that I owned one,
but two questions remain:
What happened to mine and which model did I have?
Well, the answer to the first question is most likely
that I either destroyed it when trying to take it apart,
or that it ended up languishing on the shelves of a thrift store in Kernersville.
The answer to the second question is more vague,
seeing as there was an entire line of these things
known as Waterfuls.
They were sold by Tomy, Milton Bradley, Coleco and probably others,
and has dozens of variants, so there's no telling.
I highly doubt it was this 1976 original because...
frick, I wasn't even born until a decade later.
Whatever the answer truly is,
these Waterful toys hold a special place in my heart.
The place where I just can't wait for us to get where we're going
so I can just get out of the car and do anything else,
because these stupid rings are startin' to really get on my nerves!
[jazzy organ music plays]
And if you enjoyed this look back at Waterful Ring-Toss,
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