So! Happy 2012, everyone! A nice even number, this one. A leap year, even, which I prefer to think of as a year with an extra day when you can eat a lot of cookies and then forget it ever happened. Or something like that. (For those of you with more stalwart, healthier resolutions, what I actually mean is: CARROT STICKS. FEBRUARY 29 IS ALL ABOUT THE CARROT STICKS.)
The holidays were very quiet around these parts. I was able to rouse myself from the couch sickbed now and then to grudgingly remove new toys from their stunningly secure packages and even put a few together. On that subject: I remain stymied as to why today’s toy manufacturers insist upon1,252 twist ties and an enormous amount of unnecessary tape. In my day, I seem to remember the toys kind of just rattling around in their boxes, all those Cabbage Patch Kids and GI Joes and Rainbow Brites just banging back and forth amiably until released. Back then, there was probably even a picture on the side of the box showing how kids could just open one end and pour all the small choking hazards directly into their mouths YUM YUM YOU CHILDREN OF THE EIGHTIES STAND NOT A CHANCE
It was during one of these Christmastime toy dismantlings that I stabbed myself in the thumb with a particularly lethal plastic part. I now have a welt that is totally going to require a better story should it eventually end up as a scar. Something more along the lines of That Time I Got Lost In The Jungle And Had To Survive By My Wits and My Thumb, as opposed to OW-Polly-Pocket-roller-coasters-hurt.
Speaking of Polly Pocket roller coasters that hurt! Why do the instructions tell me to pre-assemble the trillion little coaster tracks if I only have to take them apart to fit them into the main, er, coaster/concert stage/t-shirt shop/WHY DIDN’T I BUY NICE BORING ORGANIC WOODEN TOYS apparatus?
I’m imagining the fine folks in charge of writing the instructions had a conversation much like this:
Instruction Folk #1: Now let’s see. We have plenty of confusing drawings. But what about words? What can we write here?
Instruction Folk #2: Words? Oh, right–you’re new here. Quick rule of thumb: Never use words. Only vague drawings that 37% resemble the actual toy. I mean, sure, you can throw in some arcane German or a little Swahili now and then, but you NEVER use English for toys sold in America.
Instruction Folk #1: Aha. Got it. What about this page? I have drawings of how the many tracks should pair, but honestly, when I tried assembling the toy myself, it really is impossible to put it together with the coupled tracks.
Instruction Folk #2: Even better! You’re a natural at this! You’ve stumbled upon what we around here call the Extra Step of Dratted Nonsense. We try to include at least one in every instruction manual. [slaps Folk #1 on back] Someone is going to do well at bonus time, I can tell.
Curse you, Polly Pocket (and Friends!). May you (and Friends!) somehow fall into the fireplace soon.
I had to put together a freaking toy kitchen with picture instructions and holes that weren’t all the way drilled. It was such a pain.
You know if they fall into the fireplace and burn they will smell. They are troublesome like that!
This post reminds me of a song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1t90Bg9wAw Haha I love it. So, so true. Children of the 80′s unite against TOY PACKAGING!
A. If I had to survive in the jungle based on my wits and thumb, I’d be dead.
B. I’m starting a campaign to bring the word “dratted” back into daily conversation.
C. I was always sad I never got a Cabbage Patch Doll. Until today. Stupid loose toys.
p.s. I think everything you write is super-hysterical. And I know I tell you this all the time (don’t I?) but your humor speaks to me. Unless that makes me sound insane, like I hear voices. Because then it doesn’t speak to me. It just makes me pee a little. Or a lot. Let’s not quibble over dratted details.
We went to Zellers (YES, I am Canadian as verified by the fact that my toddler now recognizes hockey on the TV as easily as Dora!), anyway – we were in Zellers (Walmarts forgotten and soon to be abandoned cousin) so my 8 year old could buy herself a birthday gift. The toy she wanted had pieces obviously missing.Leading her to observewith a sigh ” well, I guess that is why things are fastened so tightly in boxes!”. Because if things aren’t tied down with a million twist ties then people will open the boxes and take the toys from the store without paying for them. Because I guess between the 80′s and now, parents forgot to instill the knowledge in their kids heads that attempted shoplifting would result in a swift smack upside the head!
When did Polly Pocket and her friends turn into little mini Bratz dolls?! Next you’re going to tell me they have teeny weeny tattoos.