This is the prize from a recent impulse buy. It was something I wanted in my younger days when trinkets were held in higher esteem. (Journal photo by Christie Mastric)

Oh, the things we wished we could have as a kid that we now can have as an adult, but don’t. When I was in my grade school years, I envied kids who regularly got candy bars and other delicacies. Looking back on that time, I suspect my mom didn’t buy us a lot of that stuff because they were loaded with sugar and dental visits weren’t cheap.

Now, I can buy candy bar after candy bar should I so desire. I also can go to an ice cream shop and feast on sundaes, parfaits and shakes, but instead I make these visits only monthly, and then typically just during the warm season.

Sometimes I’m trying to save money, although keeping to a strict budget has never been one of my strong points. But the real reason why I don’t feast on sodas as an adult whenever I want? Calories.

They’re something that didn’t enter my 8-year-old brain much. It seemed the only people who had to worry about that, it seemed, were models from Britain, and I wasn’t that keen on being the paramour of a Beatle or Rolling Stone in the 1960s.

I did, however, have a crush on Micky Dolenz of the Monkees.

Still, there are many ice cream places I pass by, reluctantly.

Another object I always pushed to get, unsuccessfully, was one of those cheap toys in a capsule you extracted from a machine as you would a gum ball. As I recall, gum balls were a nickel back in my day, but these capsule toys ran a lot more, maybe a quarter.

I figured any toy that had to be hidden in a capsule had to be extremely valuable, and they were mysteriously fascinating to me.

So, when I was at the Shopette at K.I. Sawyer recently, I cracked and got one of these items. It might have sent me back 50 cents or so, but I got to see what was inside the orange capsule that fate selected for me.

I am now the proud owner of a elastic, google-eyed, plastic bouncy creature with tentacles — just what I was missing in this world.

Perhaps my mom knew the relative lack of financial value of these items when I was repeatedly rebuffed from buying them, plus the money spent on them would have bought a lot of NILLA Wafers, my family’s cookie of choice.

I sometimes, too, think: Do I really need the stuff I wanted so badly as a kid? After all, my interests have changed over the years.

Or have they?

I still subscribe to a children’s toy catalog where I can peruse over the cool stuff out there. Having a chemistry set is not out of the realm of possibility. I had one in grade school, and many a fun experience came from making ink and working with phenolphthalein solution to indicate whether something was an acid or a base.

Perhaps what is keeping me from getting one is figuring out where to put it. The basement would seem to be the best spot where I could channel my inner mad scientist. However, our basement is pretty cramped as it is, and is getting fuller with unreturned bottles and cans.

(Any charity out there needing these is urged to contact me.)

With adulthood comes responsibility, and that means holding back on getting things you want, either due to finances, possible weight gain or the fact you just don’t need them.

Those are things youngsters don’t really get just yet, so instead, if they’re like me, they dream of the day when they can get what they want, buying a Chunky candy bar from a store on a whim.

Discretion is a part of my life, though, and I don’t deny myself the occasional luxury. As I write these words, two packages of Chuckles candies lie in wait for me in our cupboard.

I just have to keep my urges in check. So, the next time I pass a machine with capsule toys with cheap trinkets inside them, I’ll just have to keep passing by.