I grew up in the 1980s, so my memories of playing with toys from that era are filled with Star Wars figures, Transformers, and G.I. Joes. In fact, I often cite the 1980s G.I. Joe line as my last love affair with toys as a child. By the time I was done with them, I had moved on to girls, skateboarding, and punk rock.

I was smart enough to hold on to all of my Star Wars toys, but I guess G.I. Joe broke my heart, so I gave away my collection without thinking twice. My entire stash ended up going to my younger cousin Josh, who lived three hours north of us – and that was that. Apparently he had a good time with them, and passed them along to our mutual cousin Brandon. After he was finished with them, they ended up back in Josh’s garage, where they sat for 20 years.

A couple years ago, my Mom, knowing full well how I feel about old nostalgic things, found them in a musty cobweb-filled box in my uncle Glen’s garage and brought them back to me. Opening that box after about 25 years was amazing! I couldn’t believe how many of the toys were still in decent shape, knowing full well my gender’s propensity to melt, burn, crush, and destroy anything and everything we can get our hands on in our tween years.

3 kids, 3 families, one G.I. Joe collection. Here is how it was returned to me, 25 years later. Not pictured is the Skystriker F14, which is upstairs in my son’s closet as I type this (not sure why I didn’t include it in the pic.). Enjoy!

When you have a MacBook Pro delivered, the nice shiny white Apple box comes inside a less shiny brown shipping box. In fact, the Apple box is suspended inside that shipping box by paper corner pads. While I’m stoked that these packaging pieces are recyclable (Apple does pay attention to the impact of its products), turns out they’re reusable too!

I noticed the spacing between the edges was the same width as Thomas the Tank Engine tracks, which are everywhere in my house. When I put the two together, they fit perfectly…then I thought about how I could use them. Sure enough, they are nearly the perfect height to work with the standard Thomas riser tracks. Very cool, and something new for the little ones to be creative with!

Have you ever seen a purple Lego brick? Seriously, think about it. Have you ever seen one?

A couple of years ago, my friend Rachel gave us a big box of Duplos. We love Duplos, and this batch came with a few regular Lego bricks trapped in the nooks and crannies of the box. I happily integrated the entire lot into our family stash, and went about my business.

Over the next few months, this 8×1 purple brick kept turning up, and eventually it caught my eye. We have thousands upon thousands of Lego bricks, but only one of them is purple. How could this be? Lego bricks are some of the most creative, thoughtful, brain-growing toys out there. Had they simply neglected to make purple bricks? How rare are they?

Apparently, purple Lego bricks ARE very rare! As this Yahoo Answers thread indicates, the missing color has definitely been noticed by fans. I’ve learned that most of the purple bricks in existence probably came from a Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Bus Set. One observant brickhead noticed the purple cone lampshade in the Sunshine House Set. The color is noticeably absent from the Lego online store, so clearly there is some kind of concerted effort to keep purple bricks oppressed – right?

Hey Lego: Set the purple bricks free!!! People want purple Lego bricks, so why not make it happen? I mean, look how happy this woman was when she found some in a Chicago store.

Until Lego can make it happen, feel free to bask in the glory of my 8×1 purple Lego brick: