Pogs

Pogs
Category: Toys
Pogs, also known by their original, generic name bottle caps/milkcaps, were a staple in a boy’s early teenage life, and some girl’s too. Pogs were basically gambling for kids. You and your friend or a few friends put equal amounts of pogs into a stack and ya took turns bashing them with a hard plastic or metal pog called a slammer. The ones that flipped over were yours and your friends couldn’t say shit about it. There were times when you raked in the pogs, and other times you went home pogless. And there was always that one pog that your friend had that you wanted so bad. You’d do anything for that shiny, foil coated pog. You’d even make a deal with him: “OK, I’ll put ten pogs in the pile if you put in that pog and just five others. Deal?” But no matter what you did, you could never get that holy grail of pogs into your roster, if you could even make your friend put it up for grabs in the first place. Then there was pog trading. You’d offer half of your pogs just for that one, and you still couldn’t get it. Pogs were also great in teaching my generation responsibility. Sure they were scattered all over our bedrooms, but we were careful with them. They were basically just dense cardboard, one little bend and they were rendered unplayable. For me pogs bridged the gap between baseball cards and girls. They came in when baseball cards were getting boring and right before all the girls in the world were cured of their cooties. While the current generation talks about how they used to be Pokemon masters, many from my generation ask “Yeah, but can you Pog?”