The Little People go to the water park. Ahoy.
July 16, 2010
Recently, a motley yet somehow charming group of Fisher Price Little People hit the local water park. It was an afternoon as perfect as one spent at a water park can be, complete with intrigue, indecent exposure, and titillating violence. It was much like an especially good episode of “Gossip Girl,” but with less plastic.
The Little People, long relegated to the basement since the Child Owner turned two, were in desperate need of a bath. Covered with dust and beginning to show their age, the Little People resigned themselves to a soapy bath, a must before entering any public water amusement facility. (Also referred to as a P.W.A.F. Just so you know.)
While no one Little Person would have called the bath pleasurable, nary a complaint was made. The frog on Blond Man’s back did experience a panic attack, but dishsoap bubbles muffled his cries. Turns out that Dawn Direct Foam (Lime Surge scent) cuts not only grease, but also panicked screams. Handy.
Bath complete, it was finally time to pass through the gates into the main area of the P.W.A.F. One glance told the Little People all they needed to know: The park had fallen upon Hard Times. Instead of the bumper boats of days past, visitors were now offered Crocs on which to float. Not even real Crocs either. KNOCK-OFF CROCS.
Still relieved to be freed from the basement, the Little People decided to make the best of it. However, Necklace Lady, long homesick for the placid waters of her native Hawaii (French Polynesia? the Federated States of Micronesia?), did bring her cell phone into the boat with her to lodge a complaint, thus proving you can never truly satisfy a Pacific islander.
Headphone Lady fared better, balancing precariously on the tip of her Croc boat. Onlookers could be heard murmuring that she appeared to be on the verge of taking off her top, but these rumors were speedily squashed by the lifeguard, Pilot Man.
From atop his Tupperware observation post, Pilot Man sees and hears everything. Local legend has it that he will put down his steaming cup of coffee and promptly water torture any swimmer who gets out of line, but this might be nothing more than local gossip.
Then again, maybe not.
Happily, Pilot Man had very little other reason to scold park visitors this idyllic day. Nearly everyone behaved themselves admirably, even those waiting in line, a queue that stretched almost as far as the eye could see.
If any of the Little People were anxious about this guy, they hid it well. Apparently men brandishing gigantic wrenches at inappropriate times is not cause for concern at this particular P.W.A.F.
When everyone had their fill of the bumper boats, they moved on to Pirate Island, the P.W.A.F.‘s only other ride. Several Little People jumped in immediately, ignorant of the Dangers That Lurked.
Yet many others remained cautious about the, you know, GIANT SHARK. Kitten Lady opted for the safety of Pirate Island’s beach, her smarmy grin the only hint to her bloodthirsty voyeuristic side.
Cell Phone Man, never the sharpest tool in the shed, performed a lazy backstroke. Cursed with myopic eyes, he never even saw the shark before it ate him. Sigh. Life is so tragic. One minute you’re frolicking at a P.W.A.F., the next you’re nothing more than an inflatable shark’s snack. Rest in peace, Cell Phone Man. Rest in peace.
But Beach Ball Girl? She kept her eyes on the prize. Even as the lifeless bodies of the shark’s victims floated around her, Beach Ball Girl continued to lay claim to the treasure chest. This cold-hearted yet shrewd determination netted her $100,000 in gold coins. She has since used this fortune to start her own line of hair extensions, in partnership with Fisher Price.
The moral of the story? Not all blondes are dumb.
Because no kid needs a toy this badly.
June 29, 2010
One summer day, Mother and Daughter went for an impromptu swimming lesson at a family member’s pool. Afterward, flushed from the exercise and some yelling (AURA, YOU NEED TO LET GO OF ME! THE SWIM BUBBLE WILL HELP YOU FLOAT! IF YOU GRASP THE FRONT OF MY BATHING SUIT AND EXPOSE MY BREASTS ONE MORE TIME I AM SO ABANDONING YOU HERE IN THE DEEP END SO HELP ME GOD) and some screaming (MOMMY HOLD ME HOLD ME MOMMY I AM GOING TO GO UNDER DON’T LET ME GOOOOOOOOOOOO), Mother and Daughter decided to stroll next door to the neighborhood mall. It was a quiet stroll, given how neither was speaking to the other, but a stroll it remained.
Lunch at the food court was had, conversation was resumed, and many a ride in the mall’s glass elevator was taken. All in all, life was good. Which is why Mother and Daughter should never, ever have stopped into the mall toy store. For that is where Mother was exposed to the stuff that will haunt her nightmare for decades to come. (For the record, Daughter seemed wildly unaffected. Mother questions this. Mother feels that maybe less sheltering needs to take place.)
Without further ado, The Stuff That Will Haunt My Nightmares For Decades to Come, also known as…
BABY DOLLS.
Horrible Horror #1: The Man Baby
You can dress up that sucker in all the pink in the world, but that won’t change the fact that she looks like George Burns. Or possibly Nick Nolte on a really youthful day.
Horrible Horror #2: The Assassin Baby
The manufacturer can swear up and down that this is the “Sleepy Time Dreams” baby, but I for one know the eyes of a killer when I see them. It’s a free country, so, of course, buy this for your kid if you want. But I’d frisk that moon for the world’s tiniest sniper rifle first. Maybe the little yellow cap, too.
Horrible Horror #3: The Opera Baby
Now here’s a doll I can almost get behind. Does he let mere cardboard packaging and the possibility of living for all eternity in the World’s Worst Toy Store get him down? No, indeedy! He flings his chubby plastic arm out with the kind of flourish normally reserved for opera singers. If you close your eyes, you can almost hear him: “Figaro! Figaro! Fiiiiigaro!“
Horrible Horror #4: The Sumo-Politician Baby
Leave it to the close-minded world of toy sales to make the one non-white baby in the store a cross between a sumo wrestler and an infant with a penchant for Hitler’s gestures. Plus the indecency of the high-waisted, polka dot diaper! I almost bought the little bugger just to put him out of his misery in the trash can outside the store.
Horrible Horror #5: The I’ve-Given-Up Baby
Poor little gal. Not even that plastic cable-tie-type thing they tried to lasso her neck with can contain her—or her despair. I thought you only saw such hopeless eyes in those photos of refugees that Time always publishes, but obviously I was mistaken.
Horrible Horror #6: The Morning-After Baby
Now, the box tells us that this is “Baby Sleeping Beauty.” Yet I beg to differ. Last time I saw Aurora, she was shying away from spinning wheels but otherwise hale and hearty. This Sleeping Beauty? Well, let’s just say that she doesn’t look like the type of girl who shies away from anything. It’s spooky, actually. It’s as if she’s taking fashion pointers from Lindsay Lohan but learning how to sit in public from Britney Spears.
Needless to say, Mother will never be the same.
The pool isn’t the only inflated thing on that box.
May 20, 2010
As I may have mentioned before, we have no yard. We have lots of mulch and tons of weedy stuff and a downright precipitous rock cliff in the back, but zip for grass. I doubt this would bother me in the least except for Aura, who is a child and is having a childhood and therefore needs Outdoor Childhood Memories. Given this, I am easily suckered into buying any outside toy that can be used on non-grassy surfaces. We have a closetful of bubble toys, a virtual hamper of bouncy balls, the world’s most annoying ring-toss kit…the list goes on. But I still feel guilty.
I tell you this because all that guilt is my excuse for purchasing the following:
Yet I am still scrambling for an excuse to explain why the woman on the pool box infuriates me so. I suspect it might have something to do with the fact that I find myself reluctantly subsisting almost entirely on cucumbers and Fiber One bars (Oats ‘n’ Chocolate!). Whatever the impetus, this Mother Who Swims with Her Kids in a Silver Lamé Bikini is really annoying the hell out of me.
A closer look.
As I spent 20 sweaty minutes pumping up the pool today, I kept casting looks over my shoulder, unable to stop glaring at the Mother Who Swims with Her Kids in a Silver Lamé Bikini’s smarmy grin. Or, for that matter, the Mother Who Swims with Her Kids in a Silver Lamé Bikini’s abs, which I am fairly certain are approximately 273% more defined than my own. Also, those fake kids of hers might very well be better behaved than mine. Though I doubt that last one, since the boy looks a bit like a Kennedy and, well, we all know how THAT goes.
Twenty minutes is a long time to glare at one hussy, so I eventually let my gaze wander over the rest of the box. And I started to feel a little better.
The above? That’s information about the pool. In Finnish. Maybe’s it me, but trying to sell an inflatable pool to consumers in Finland seems a little…optimistic. As I pumped and then pumped some more, it occurred to me that selling pools in Finland is kind of like selling snowman-building kits in Ecuador. “Snowmen in Ecuador!” I chuckled to myself, enlightened by my own genius. I tell you, I may not have abs of steel, but I am positively AWASH in marketing savvy.
Then there was this:
Maybe this is also targeted to Finns. Perhaps the Splash and Play! marketing folks believe the Finnish people to be not only a hearty people, eager to thumb their noses at a naturally frosty climate, but also a people equipped with ginormous mouths. A race of humans who could actually manage the attempted swallowing of a six-foot-long piece of plastic, which is the only possible way the Splash and Play! pool could be a choking hazard.
And that right there really put it into perspective for me. I may not have a sculpted stomach, and my closet may indeed be woefully empty of lamé bikinis. But at least no one has ever believed me capable of trying to swallow a pool. In my book, this counts for a lot.
This one, though, I’ll have to watch out for:
If you could see what she does to Hershey’s Kisses…well. Let’s just say you’d be worried, too.
