Sometimes a toy is just a toy. It amuses us for a short time and then it gets tossed (as in the case of a Happy Meal toy) or passed down to a sibling, a cousin, or a complete stranger care of the local Goodwill. But sometimes a toy is a little more than that. It stays with us in memories, pictures, or—if you’re lucky—your parents’ attic.

I had a toy like that. It was called a Printer’s Kit. Fisher-Price made it from 1981-1984, and I received it as a Christmas gift in 1981 (along with Strawberry Shortcake, a teeter-tottering clown music box, and a lump of coal†).

The Printer’s Kit came equipped with 2-3 sets of each letter, numbers 0-9, and every punctuation mark a young typesetter could possibly need; an orange frame for setting the type; an ink pad; and a large bottle of barely-semi-washable, dark blue ink.

To use it, you simply aligned the letters in the frame, pressed the framed letters onto the inkpad, and printed to your heart’s content. And that’s exactly what I did—printed to my heart’s content. I printed greeting cards, brochures, and newsletters for fictitious events and agencies. I also created big messes with semi-washable, dark blue ink.

If you’re having trouble picturing it, trouble yourself no more.

The included photograph was taken by, and used with permission from, designer Shane Bzdok's Flickr set. Aside from a missing R, his set is in mint condition. He must have been like my friend Stacy, who never bent her Barbie’s legs– responsible bordering on compulsive when it came to maintaining his toys. I admire that, though I never emulated such care. The Printer’s Kit letters that didn’t get mauled by my dog, Buffy, eventually became stained blue from the ink I didn’t remove quickly enough.

Several years later I graduated from making greeting cards signed ALLISON★ with the Printer’s Kit to pecking short stories on a typewriter with glass-covered keys that once belonged to my grandfather. Neither the Printer’s Kit nor the typewriter made it to my parents’ attic. But they’ve stayed in my memories and, I’d like to think, my stories. And that’s more than I can say for my bent-kneed Barbie Dolls, or even Strawberry Shortcake..

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†I’m serious about the lump of goal. My dad, who worked for a coalmine at the time, had a running joke that one year I’d receive a lump of coal for Christmas. He made good on his word in 1981 though, to his credit, the lump was shaped like a cute bear.