Earlier today, a friend and I were talking about one of my favorite products released in the 90’s, the Yak Bak. For those of you that don’t know, the Yak Bak was a little plastic gadget that recorded sound and then would play it back to you as many times as you wanted, providing hours of parental annoyance at a cheap price. Many variations were released (for a full list, see the Wikipedia entry), my favorite being the one that allowed you to change the pitch of the sound (voice, ideally) that you recorded; making you either sound like a retarded hippo or Alvin and the Chipmunks (keep in mind that this was before the reboots came out). I had a clear green one of these, and used it nearly every day to remember things about school after I’d gone home. It was nice.
Anyways, when we were discussing these great toys, my friend said that his grandmother got him one as a gift at one point, and had recorded her saying something very sweet and kind on it. He never erased it, until it was erased forever because the batteries ran out a few years later.
My heart broke.
