Now going back to the box-- one thing I'm sure I didn't leave out of the old box was a pencil case with a built-in miniature piano that can play tunes. I'm thumping my chest now in saying that pencil cases of that kind were a status symbol in first up to about third grade: the more built-in gadgets and accessories, the better. By fourth grade up, the measure of prestige changes. It favors the metallic kind, especially if the designs on it are favorite cartoon characters. Plus points if everything that goes into that case bears the same cartoon theme, or if the pencils' and pens' colors rob the color wheel of its tinctures.

There are other things I would have stuffed in the box, but then I don't need to because I can easily make the toy any time. Paper/plastic cup telephones, for example, are two paper or plastic cups (preferably plastic, because they don't easily tear) with a long string attached to them. A friend's voice can be heard from across the building if you have enough string and if you stretch the string enough.

Chinese Garter, an all-time favorite, can be made out of a few yards of garter, tied into a loop and held by two persons. The game involves a lot of jumping and stepping on the garter, and the winner who gets to jump up to waist level and pins the loop down to the ground with his/her feet becomes an instant celebrity for the day. Chinese Kick, another all-time favorite, is just a few strands of straw threaded through a coin-sized metal with a hole, called "tingga." In the absence of straw or tingga, we make do with balls of crumpled scratch paper. In any case, players kick the shuttle as high up in the air as they can-I remember the janitor collecting two garbage bagfuls from the school building's roof.

A sheet of notebook paper can be folded into a square with four pockets for thumbs and forefingers. Colored with different crayons outside and numbered inside with names or adjectives under every flap, the simple origami makes an instant matchmaking gismo-cum-personality-orienting device. Bubble-blowing during breezy summers was seventh heaven, especially when I concocted the bubbles myself with a special blend of shredded and pounded gumamela petals and leaves, and powdered laundry detergent mixed in a little water. Sometimes I just asked my mom to shell out a peso or two so I could buy myself those three-for-one-peso plastic balloons-they were perfect for weekend picnics in the park, where I could either chase them or fill them with water...

I also keep a smaller box for tiny items, such as the free stuff I get in junkfood and breakfast items-stick-on tattoos, stickers, plastic soldiers, miniature trucks and bulldozers, marbles in different sizes and colors, a couple of comic strips found inside Bazooka bubble gum wrappers... I have an incomplete collection of them, as well as those Hello Kitty pencil top accessories and Ghost Buster glow-in-the-dark pop-up characters...

Ah, yes, but I'm already rambling. I could go on and on about the toys I used to have and the games I used to play. Some went into the box; and if only my rubber duckies could speak, I'm sure they'd be honking about how crowded it's getting inside.

But I never had the heart to throw those playthings away, or donate them to charity. Perhaps its because I never really completely outgrew them, and that anytime when I feel up to it I could always go back to that box and be a little girl again; after all, toys are "for ages 3 and up." Laugh out loud, for all I care. Reality aside, for all anyone cares, I can still bring my rubber duckies to the shower, or out in the lawn when it's raining.

But I do miss playing in the rain.