The Guy We Invented
"Oh, the things you can thinks if only you try!"
~Dr. Seuss
The Guy We Invented
Sunday mornings in the Heffron household meant attending church as a family, home for breakfast, and then settling into the living room to read the Seattle Times.
At some point, my brother and I discovered the enticing insert Columbia Records tucked into the paper, where for just one penny plus 86 cents for shipping, we could order eleven full-size record albums and they would be delivered right to our door! Eleven albums for a penny!!
This was too good to be true! It was the mid-70s, and we were eager to get our music collection started, and for just a penny! We didn't really pay attention to the fine print that required us to order and pay for an additional eight albums at full price over the next three years. We figured, no problem.
The trick here was what name would we use to order the records? We certainly couldn't use one of our own; Doreen and Mic (aka Mom Dad) would be furious. So we did what all resourceful young people did back then, we turned to the 30 Volumes of Encyclopaedia Britannica that lined the bottom of our living room bookshelf and set about the work of creating a new character.
Molock Q. Zwink became the newest member of the family, and he managed to stay with us for quite some time.
We filled out the postcard with our penny and the eighty-six cents taped to the back, and popped it in the mail. And before we knew it, the albums started arriving. It was heavenly! Don McLean, The Carpenters, The Beatles, and Moody Blues, and so much more. How clever we thought we were.
My brother and I grew up and moved out. Molock Q. Zwink stayed. My parents kept getting mail for him for years, offers and reminders for a guy who never existed, sent by a company that had no idea it had spent years corresponding with two kids and an encyclopedia.
I think about Molock now and then, and what he actually was. A version of my brother and me, built just solid enough to say yes to something we hadn't thought all the way through. I've watched people do the very same thing as adults, myself included, present a slightly (or totally) different version of who they are so they can say yes to a marriage, a job, a life, without looking too closely at what comes attached. And that version, once she's said yes, has a way of sticking around a lot longer than anyone planned.
Eleven albums for a penny was never really the offer. The offer was three years of obligation, dressed up in something irresistible. That's a pattern I've come to recognize well beyond a Sunday newspaper insert.
But here's what I actually remember when I think of Molock Q. Zwink. Not the fine print, not the obligation, not even the years of junk mail that followed him around long after we'd moved on. What I remember is how much fun it was to invent him, how hard we laughed, and how many times my parents brought him up over the years, always with a chuckle.
Some of our worst ideas turn out to be the ones we're most fond of once enough time has passed. The scheme fades. What's left is the joy of it.
Love and Light,
Copyright © 2026 Michele Heffron Life Strategist, All rights reserved.
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