When I was a little girl, about three or four years old, I was the perfect picture of girliness. My blonde hair was wispy and hung in delicate curls; I wore pink and ruffles; I loved to curtsey and pretend I was a ballet dancer. But my favorite toy was not a doll or a tea set or a teddy bear (although I did have all of those, and I loved them dearly).

My favorite toy was a big, yellow, metal Tonka dump truck.

I don’t remember receiving the dump truck as a gift. It is more like it was always there, sitting on the floor next to my lacy bedspread. I didn’t think of it as a boy’s toy, just like I didn’t know that only boys were supposed to play with Legos and Matchbox cars and mud. I was lucky enough to have parents who provided me with a variety of activities, regardless of their gender designation.

The yellow dump truck is tucked away in the garage somewhere, but I can still imagine it as if it were in front of me. The dumping apparatus creaks with rust now, having put in much overtime hauling rocks, dolls, mud, and peanut butter cookies, although not usually at the same time. The cab, with its tiny open side windows and foggy plastic windshield, is too small to fit any of my Fisher Price Little People (the kind that were skinny wooden choking hazards, not the bloated plastic kind they sell now), Barbie dolls, or even the little Lego people with the holes in their feet for clicking in place.

But I tried. I was a child who would not accept failure, so I tried cramming little figures into that cab with the same fervent desperation that drove me to nibble the corners off jigsaw puzzle pieces.

As a child, I had a problem pronouncing the letter combination TR. It came out as F. This was fine and even endearing when I was talking about trees or trains or trolleys, but not trucks. In fact, there was an incident, of which I’m constantly reminded by my mother, when I exclaimed loudly in a crowded parking lot, “Look at that big trucker!”

Needless to say, I was quickly conditioned to call my dump truck my Tonka to avoid further embarrassment. To this day, in my vocabulary, there are pickups and semis, but very few trucks.

The stores still sell the big yellow Tonka dump trucks, but they are no longer metal. Like all other toys, they have been made into plastic for safety’s sake. I’m glad kids are better safeguarded these days, but the squeaky hinges, rust spots, and sharp edges were all a part of my Tonka’s charm. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right?

Besides, the real grown-up world definitely has some sharp edges.