Clear Blue Gear

Before I even started kindergarten, when I lived in seaside public housing, I remember being taken to the doctor by my mother several times. Perhaps I had caught some illness, or maybe I was injured, or it could have been for vaccinations. I don't remember that part, though.

On the way home, we stopped by a shopping center, and there was a large Microman displayed in the toy section.
Microman was a very popular toy at the time, a doll about ten centimeters tall with articulated joints. I feel like the one displayed in that store was about twice the size of a regular Microman.
"Oh, there's a big Microman!"
"Do you want that?"
"Yeah."
"If you go to the doctor three more times, I'll buy it for you."
I didn't particularly mind going to the doctor, so if I could get it by going three more times, I was grateful. I just thought, "Yay!" and that was that.

After that, I saw the doctor three times, and it was decided that I was fine.
"You did a great job, so let's go buy that Microman," my mother said.
I held my mother's hand and we went to the usual shopping center.
However, when it came time to actually get it, for some reason, I didn't care about the Microman anymore.
Instead, I wanted something that looked like a ruler with holes in it that was sitting on a nearby shelf.
"I want this one."
"Huh? Are you sure about that?"
"Yeah."
"Are you really sure?"
"Yeah."
In the end, I had that ruler-like thing bought for me and we went home.
When my father came home in the evening, my mother laughed and told him, "He said he wanted that one."
"Huh. So that's what he liked," my father also laughed.

It seems it was a set consisting of gear-like parts with small holes and a square ruler-like piece, and if you hooked the tip of a pencil into the hole of the gear and moved it around, you could draw some kind of pattern. As expected, I got bored of it quickly.
I'm not entirely sure why I wanted that thing in the first place, but I remember it looked beautiful in clear blue.