“Toys R Us to close all 800 of its U.S. stores”

Like many people my age, I have fond memories of walking up and down the aisles at Toys R Us stores when I was a kid. However, I recently had the chance to do the same with my nine-year-old, and the current stores are nowhere nearly as engaging. She was excited to go, and wanted a new toy, but the store wasn’t doing anything for her. Perhaps it was that the toys aren’t as good as when I was a kid–they certainly don’t seem as creative somehow. Perhaps kids are just more into video games than they back in my day; video games became a thing while I was a kid in my single digits, and were very expensive. Anyway, it’s sad to know that something like this is gone.

Ironically, the thing that took us to the store was to buy a controller for the Nintendo Switch, which Toys R Us had in stock and was nearby. We also had a gift card from my daughter’s previous birthday that had been languishing for over a year, something I can’t imagine happening to my younger self.