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.
Apparently, the planets have aligned, the stars have crossed, and a ritual sacrifice of a Polly Pocket or two (RELAX, one of them was already missing her left arm and the other one bore an off-putting resemblance to Mickey Rourke) has been made, for we have a babysitter. This is a rare occurrence, so rare that Adam and I are downright stymied by how to fill a full six hours of evening. All day, as we’ve been in the car or at the grocery store or eating lunch at the kitchen counter, we’ve been trying to make a plan, yet it’s as if the sheer abundance of options has somehow stifled our decision-making ability.
I think we’ve settled on where to eat, since we finally identified a place that meets both our Date Restaurant Requirements. For Adam, this means the establishment employs a bartender whom he can merrily pester and badger and try to stump with his requests for arcane gins and boutique bitters. For me, this means there is not a child in sight. I am nothing but easy to please. Maternal, too.
It’s been so long since we’ve been out alone that I had forgotten that there is more to Date Night than the Date. Wearing something besides jeans, for instance. I wandered upstairs a while ago and started pushing hangers around and pulling open drawers, ever hopeful of finding a fantastic outfit that I already owned but had totally forgotten about, kind of like happens on the makeover shows except that those people are models anyway and reality television continues to screw with me.
I was rifling through one of the drawers when my fingers suddenly tangled in the straps of something. It was only after cocking my head to the side and squinting really hard that I recognized it for what it was: a push-up bra. After gently removing the layers of dust, I tried it on and found it does indeed improve the shirt I was hoping to wear. There is also a slight chance that it makes me look like an overage teenage hooker, but I choose to ignore that part. If anyone at the restaurant says anything, I plan on knocking them flat on their back with my cleavage. Especially if it’s a kid.
I won’t even mention what was written on the slide.
June 23, 2010
As summer sets in, Aura and I are enjoying a rather fancy-free season. Freed from the September–June preschool, etc. schedule, we’ve been sort of meandering, hitting a beach here, an amusement park there, an ice-cream shop or twenty over there. Since it is widely known that I’m allergic to overscheduling (seriously, there are hives involved; BIG ones), this suits me just fine.
What doesn’t sit so well is something I’ve encountered during our recent expeditions, and it is called The Mean World of Playground Graffiti. I never thought I was an out-and-out prude, but I may have to reevaluate. Either that or call the city’s Department of Public Works to request a little scrub-down. Here, let me show you.
It all starts semi-innocently enough. I mean, generations of teenagers have challenged authority. That being said, I myself may have issued such a challenge a little more eloquently. For instance, I would have scrawled “the police” instead of “The Police,” since otherwise it kind of looks like someone is screwing with Sting. But whatever.
Then the first mention of reproductive organs is made and both grammar and decency go all to hell.
Once you get past the fact that we’re talking about a lobster penis, not a “horse penis,” or a “bear penis,” or peni of any other animals larger than a lobster, another thought jumps out at you. Our friend Spencer does not just have a lobster penis—he IS a lobster penis. Which seems like a pretty bad insult, especially when it’s all underlined like that in Sharpie marker. It’s one thing to have genitalia like a crustacean; it’s another thing indeed to BE the genitalia. I know not who Spencer is, yet I pity him.
However, Spencer is not the graffiti artistes’ primary target. Nope. That would be the much maligned Kristen:
I feel for Kristen. Not only is her alleged sexuality pronounced for all the world to see (the arrow helpfully explaining her sapphic tendencies), the one compliment offered is scratched out and refuted. Suddenly, one senses disagreement among the ranks of this particularly nasty little group of homophobic middle-schoolers.
Yet their differences do not get in the way of their constant need to elaborate. In case we still do not understand what Kristen supposedly enjoys in relationships, there is this charming clarification:
By the time I saw this gem, I didn’t know what I would do first if I got my hands on the graffiti culprits. Would I lock them in a room for a day-long seminar on verb-object agreement and words that sound the same but are spelled differently (words that are called GOD HELP ME homophones)? Or would I simply beat their insensitivities out of them with an especially spiny lobster penis, such as Spencer? I still haven’t decided.
One thing I have decided: This has got to stop. I can be fancy-free and laid-back and all that good stuff with the best of ‘em. But then a few days ago Aura pointed to the following and asked, “Why did someone draw an alien on the playground tunnel?”
She’s three. I’m 32. Neither of us needs that drawing to be anything other than an alien. But to be on the safe side I’m so calling the city tomorrow.
