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Sixty-four colors in a tiered yellow-and-green box, with a small round hole in the back that was supposed to sharpen the crayons and did not. We tried anyway. We ruined the Burnt Sienna. We did not learn.

A pink plastic tackle box for a nine-year-old with no makeup, three Lip Smackers, and a comb that was already losing teeth. The compartments were the point.

On the first day of sixth grade they handed you a padlock, three numbers on a slip of paper, and a six-foot-tall tin cabinet with your name on the inside. Figure it out before the bell.

Shredded pink gum in a gold-foil pouch, sold to kids at the concession stand, dressed up exactly like the thing it was pretending not to be.

Chalk lines on blacktop. One red rubber ball. The kid in square one made up the rules in real time. There was no appeals process.

You just had a stranger scrape your teeth for forty minutes. On the way out, a battered plastic bin got lowered to your eye level and someone said pick one. Only one. Not two. There was a toothbrush in the bin, legally also a prize. You had thirty seconds to make a decision you would live with for a month.