As the child of parents firmly in the 'just-because-everyone-else-has-one-doesn't-mean-you-have-to-have-one-too," I never had an Easy-Bake Oven.

As the parent of a 5-year-old (read: pushover), you bet your powdered cake mix there's one in our house -- and it's been used exactly once thus far. Sigh.

Time to pull out your Easy-Bake Oven stories (everyone of a certain age has one, it seems). Its inventor, Ronald Howes Sr., died last week, and we're embarrassed to say we missed that news.

Who knew that, aside from having that spectacular beard and eyebrows, Mr. Howes also had something to do with arguably the coolest toy from our childhood, the one we forever coveted from our older sister's collection -- the Spirograph?!

RIP, Mr. Howes.