I have this portable white casio table top clock in my bathroom. Tonight I got out of the shower and glazed at it only to find a blank liquid display staring right back at me. It was clear that the battery had died, so I plopped a couple fresh ones and it was back in effect. Now, this clock and I go way back... Now when I say way back, I mean waaaay back... Not only do we go waaaaay back, we share a funny story, too. ;) I thought I'd share it with you guys

So, it was back in the early/mid 80's when I was living in Cairo, Egypt. I believe our family was invited to a Cairo Korean family sports event. (Korean people love having sports-related get-togethers) Since it was supposed to be a fun event, you have to have prizes to give out, right? I don't remember the exact details of the day, but the one that all the kids were looking forward to was the treasure hunt. Treasure hunt, for those of you not familiar with the term, is a game where they strategically place little pieces of papers with cryptic codes on them throughout the vicinity and people are supposed to run around looking for one within the designated time limit. It's fun, trust me. :) Well, so after a few minutes of exploring I found a piece of paper that had "#1" written on it That usually means the 1st place prize!! Now... hold up... lemme rewind a bit... ;)

So it was the day before the event and I was out in a shopping district near our place with my dad. Half way through our shopping we ran into the person who was in charge of the get-together. It looked like he was out shopping for the prizes! So naturally I was curious to see what he had bought, and guess what I saw??? A huge He-Man sticker board which was basically a package consisting of bunch of plastic boards with cool drawings of the various locations of Eternia on them. Then of course there were hundreds of little semi-adhesive sticker thingies that you can sprinkle all over the board (semi-adhesive since you can move it around to different spots if you get sick of having a he-man sticker in front of the castle greyskull all the time, etc...). Naturally I flipped!!! Those of you who know me from my Cairo days know that I was a huge He-Man nut... I probably had the most action figures and other related junk like video tapes, etc...(man, all that money could have gone towards a new set of springs for Bora... *SIGH*). Ok, so back to the main trunk of the story...

When I saw the "#1" writing on my treasure I knew it was gonna be that huge He-Man board game thing. I was psyched to the extreme!!! You have no idea, man... Then the time was up and we all gathered back to the main event area to receive our prizes. Naturally they started calling from the highest number. 6th place, 5th place, 4th place, 3rd place, 2nd place... wait a second... Why is that dude taking the huge He-Man board game out and giving it to the 2nd place winner??? Oh... my... god... The He-Man board game was a 2nd place prize.... o_0 *CRAZY*. Then came the 1st place prize, and it was this dinky little portable casio table-top clock!!! I just burst out into tears. I was just crying, crying and crying... I wanted that He-Man board game, dammit... My mom told me the reason why the clock was the 1st place prize... It was more expensive than the He-Man board game... As if I cared.... If you're 8 years old you don't want no stinking portable table-top clock... YOU WANT THE HE-MAN BOARD GAME! *SIGH* Oh, well.. so this portable clock has been in my life ever since... Bitter sweet memories, I must say. ;) The thing really lasts, though... I think I need to change the battery only every 4,5 years or so. Built Casio tough! :) Funny how I still have all these little things from my childhood days and how they bring back such memories... :D