It began as the slightest tingling. Hardly noticeable. Nothing memorable. But it grew, and spread, from my chest down into my arms and legs. My toes trembled and tapped. My hair stood at attention and I felt hot as the blood raced quickly through my veins.
Most of all, I could feel it in my eyes. They danced and darted about like googly eyes, latching onto this or that in a wild frenzy.
I felt strange urges — primal urges — like I should hunt and gather or scream things like, “Woo-hoo! The Promised Land!”
“Damn it, man,” I told myself. “Compose yourself. You’re drooling and children are starting to stare. That woman thinks you’re rabid and is probably going to hit you with her umbrella.”
But I couldn’t help it. I JUST couldn’t help it!
I had been intoxicated — no, infected — by the Lego store. Yes, the Lego store.
Oh, laugh or pity me if you must. Sure, make fun of the freak. But if you were never a Lego fanatic as a kid, you just wouldn’t understand. You wouldn’t know what it’s like to have a hot flash when you see boxes upon boxes of those little plastic blocks that can be made into a million different things.
We took my kid down for the weekend to Orlando to visit her pal Shamu, and we stopped at Downtown Disney where there’s a Lego store. I hadn’t thought much of it when my wife suggested it might be a good spot to get a present for one of my daughter’s friends. Yeah, sure, whatever.
But the moment I walked in … BAM! Like a 10-ton Lego block clocked me in the head. It was magical.
“Do you think Jack would like this?” my wife asked me, producing a box with a Star Wars battle tank displayed on the front, all guns blazing in a blur of pure beauty.
“Jack?” I spat. “Who the heck cares about Jack? I want that.”
I must admit it was not my proudest moment. But I was blinded by the Legos.
My daughter and I built a Lego drag racer to send down one of the plastic ramps they have set up in front of the store. I had taken special care to make sure the wheels were spaced far enough apart and there was ample weight to give it proper speed. She proudly launched it down the track, and it rocketed past a little boy’s car that stalled out midway down.
I roared with approval: “You’re awesome! Your car tore it up! You totally beat that kid. Girl Lego power, woooo!”
The boy’s father looked over at me. He seemed slightly annoyed, but also a bit embarrassed. Oh, to be beat by a little girl in a blue polka dot jacket.
I couldn’t help it. I had gone Lego crazy.
I grew up on Legos. I had thousands of them as a kid. In all shapes and sizes. I ate them for breakfast. When doctors asked me for urine samples, Legos literally came out. My brother and I had cases of them, and built immense, elaborate worlds in our playroom. We had so many that extra piers had to be added below the floor to support the weight. We engineered them out of the little plastic blocks.
We had Lego castles and Lego forts. We built Lego armies and waged massive wars upon each other for days. We built hurricane-proof housing for the homeless and once were nearly crushed to death when our life-size replica of the Berlin Wall toppled over.
They were everywhere and you could never walk barefoot to the bathroom in the middle of the night for fear of stepping on a stray one. Only surgery could remove an embedded Lego in your foot.
But it was a small price to pay, as we were Lego junkies.
All of this came rushing back as I walked about the store, running my fingers over the bumpy tops of the little blocks and eyeing the Indiana Jones set that some lucky kid was getting.
“I hate you,” I whispered as he walked by.
Later that night while we were getting hot chocolate I told my daughter I had an idea how to make our little Lego drag racer even faster.
“How, more wheels?” my wife asked.
“No,” I said. “Rockets!”
For some reason she wouldn’t let us go back. I think she saw the look in my eyes and understood nothing good could come of this. But no matter, I know exactly what I’m asking for Christmas this year.