I had a cash register.
Not a toy one, not a pretend one, but a real cash register, the kind you’d see in a restaurant or a small store.
We used to shop at Sam’s or Costco, one of those big box stores, and my sister and I would wander the aisles while my parents shopped. We’d look at things, collect free samples, and just exist in the store. One day, while passing through the electronics section, I spotted a cash register and immediately fell in love with it.
It was a silly obsession, and I say that in my own words, not anyone else’s. What purpose would a cash register serve for a ten to twelve year old? It was very autistic of me to want one, honestly. But I wanted that register, specifically the real one.
I showed my parents and told them that was what I wanted, and only that. I was always like that as a kid. I would ask for one thing for Christmas and want just that. I’d open presents until I got the thing I wanted, and once I did, I’d stop opening gifts altogether. If I got exactly what I asked for, I was perfectly content.
The first time I asked for the cash register, I think I was around nine or ten. That Christmas, I didn’t get it. The next year, I asked again, only for the cash register. It was the only thing on my list, for my parents and for Santa. When we took Santa pictures, I told him I wanted a real cash register from the store, like the cashiers had. I’m sure Santa was completely confused by that request.
That year, I got a Barbie cash register.
I sobbed.
It was pink, it talked, it used fake money, and it was absolutely not what I wanted. I didn’t open the rest of my gifts without being forced to. I didn’t play with anything I got. I hated that stupid Barbie cash register.
I kept asking. I asked again the following year for a real one, and again I didn’t get it. After four years of asking, and after refusing a fake one entirely, my parents finally relented.
They got me a real cash register.
It was the first gift I opened, and I screamed with joy. I was completely over the moon. I immediately asked my parents for one of each dollar bill so I could photocopy them and have “real” cash. I copied probably twenty of each bill, one dollar, two, five, ten, twenty, fifty, and one hundred. I gathered all the change from my piggy bank and stored it in the register. My parents even got me receipt paper so I could print receipts.
That cash register was my most prized possession. I think I had it until I went to college.
I was one of those kids who just needed exactly what they asked for. And I didn’t ask for much.
Traumatized Viridimere 