The Gullible Kid Revolution

When I was just a little shoat*, I could get suckered a thousand ways, but I prided myself on my ability, at a very early age, to identify the wholesale fraud perpetrated on the last page of every comic book. Whether the final ad was promoting x-ray specs or a life-sized Frankenstein for $1.00, something in my bones assured me that I'd be disappointed if I ever defaced my precious comic by clipping out the order form and sending my check, money order, or loose change to the company.

Even my impressionable young mind could comprehend that Frankenstein did not come to your house for a dollar. So I contented myself with simply imagining how great the toys looked in the ads, realizing, deep down, that anything you got for a dollar was probably made out of paper and mailed postage due.

My favorite dream ad that never suckered me was "204 Revolutionary War Soldiers - Only $1.98." The layout was similar to the "100 Piece Toy Soldier Set with Footlocker - $1.25": rows of army men engaged in bloody combat. But, the WWII motiff, while engaging, was not as substantial as the Americans and Redcoats. This isn't entirely due to sheer numbers (204 Revolutionary soldiers obviously being more than twice the number of WWII guys. The key to understanding a boy's heart - quantity - notwithstanding, there was something more "believable" about the 204. I think it had something to do with the battleships - their mere presence in the WWII ad made it too obviously impossible to deliver.

I could get gypped a lot of ways in life, but there was no way I was ever going to get snookered by an obvious shell game, and I secretly gloated over the stupid kid who I imagined falling for it, and upon receipt of the order, being instantly crushed by both the chintziness of the crummy toy (which I imagined to be cardboard or paper-thin plastic cut-outs - that you had to cut out yourself - as you might find on the back of box of cereal. And not a good box of cereal - something like King Vitamin or generic corn puffs) and the poor kid's own sense of self-worth plummeting like a stone.

I might not have been exactly master and commander, but at least I knew who I was better than: the dumb kid who bought the promise of re-enacting the Revolutionary War in his bedroom for less than 2 bucks.

Until I came across this: 204 Revolutionary War Soldiers, as ordered back in the day, complete with shipping box.

It's...it's...it's more than I could have ever imagined.

And, I dunno, I can imagine quite a bit.

But here they are - real plastic soldiers in two different colors that are almost three-dimensional and cannons that are nearly 4 inches long! These are better than the cool drawing.

The ad artwork was indeed misleading, but not in the way I thought: it underpromised.

So here I sit, nearly thirty years after the fact, wishing I had allowed myself to be gullible one more time, to take a shot at losing two bucks in exchange for the promise of an army set that would have stretched across the concrete of the bedroom floor, conquering it.



*Que sera sera.