When I was seven, my dad took me to the Mystical Attic of Toys. That wasn't its actual name — that was what I called it. It was probably known more along the lines of "The Storage Room Above the Gym," because that's what it was — it was a giant open space above the gym of the school where my dad worked briefly as the Headmaster. The toys were part of an annual auction at Christmas that raised money for the school and provided toys to needy children; they spent the remainder of the year under lock and key.

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At the age of seven I still believed in Santa Claus, and I felt the Mystical Attic of Toys would probably be the closest I ever got to Santa's workshop. I don't remember the exact nature of my father's business in the attic, but I do recall how he hesitated to let me come with him.

"You can't touch anything," he said as he undid the padlock.

I swooned at the sight. It was stacked floor to ceiling with every imaginable kind of toy — Barbies and Lite-Brites and Hot Wheels and Legos and board games galore! I immediately went to grab a toy machine gun and felt my dad's hand grab the back of my shirt.

"Show some restraint," he commanded. "You've got plenty of stuff. Think of all the kids that don't even have socks." When my dad wanted to stress how good I had it, he always reminded me that I had socks, as though the possession of that apparel indicated the line between poverty and being middle class.

I was unreasonably pissed. It was just the two of us, and it seemed cruel to thrust me into the Xanadu of a seven-year-old's wildest dreams, only to keep me from relishing it. I took a good long look around. One day, I promised myself, I will have more toys than I can ever possibly play with.

I am a victim of the modern world. As with most dreams in my life, that one was deferred until I was well past the point of caring, because now that I am thirty-five, my house has become a palace of toys. The amount of playthings around me is so overwhelmingly ridiculous as to call back visions of the Mystical Attic of Toys and make me consider whether or not I am living in an O. Henry story dripping with perfect irony.

The irony, of course, is that I purchased none of these things. They were bought mainly by grandparents, and a great many of them by my parents specifically — the same people who often denied me materialistic pleasures and encouraged me to go out into the woods and "find a stick to play with."

But it is not simply my parents. I am a victim of the modern world, as many of us are. While this is my first marriage, it is my wife's second, and our oldest child, Gavyn, is from that pairing. Also, Patrice's parents are divorced. A month after we were married, Patrice became pregnant with identical twin girls. Hence, at any one time, there are three sets of grandparents buying for three children, with Gavyn picking up a bonus set for himself, plus an absent biological father who alleviates his guilt the way many absent fathers do: by sending boxes full of elaborately useless stuff.