Our humor columnist discovers that buying and assembling toys for kids is anything but child’s play.
Illustration by Jan A. Igoe
Being as this month’s holidays were inspired by a skittish rodent and an airborne cherub who attacks random strangers with arrows, I’m sticking with Christmas stories.
Once upon a time, I understood what children wanted. Purple dinosaurs, kids from a cabbage patch, bears that care, and hippos that are always hungry. I could grasp those things. But lately, as karma would have it, I’ve become my father.
Every Christmas, toy construction was relegated to my dad. Not because he had any engineering skill (he didn’t), but elf duty and the barbecue grill were assigned by gender.
One Christmas morning, my baby brother Tommy opened the over-hyped airplane toy that every little boy wanted. Commercials made it look like an Air Base at DEFCON 1 prepping for nuclear war. But inside the box were a few cardboard airplanes (that needed folding), designed to “fly” on strings carefully draped across the living room. Still, my brother was thrilled to sit on the sofa next to his mechanically doomed dad and wait for the chintzy planes to be mounted on their assigned strings. Adjusting his glasses and muttering to himself, Dad struggled with the flimsy parts but refused female help.
Just as the planes were finally ready to launch, the phone rang.
My brother, having inherited the family attention span of a gnat, jumped up to answer it, tripping over the carefully laid strings and crashing every plane on his way. Our sweet, mild-mannered dad turned 50 shades of crimson while I lost it. “Keep laughing,” he hissed. “Someday you’ll be walking in my slippers.”
Dad collected himself, swallowed his intense frustration and directed Tommy to sit on the other side of the sofa where the phone was, lest it ring again. Then, our flustered father went back to work, patiently untangling the strings and repairing the planes. With his mechanical shortcomings on full display and martini time still 10 hours away, he was visibly suffering.
After about 30 minutes of unknotting and repairs, the planes were ready to take flight across the living room again. But just as the countdown began, the doorbell rang. Of course, Tommy shot off the couch, crashing through the planes and strings, to answer it.
This time, Dad was fresh out of patience. I quickly muffled myself in the nearest pillow while he locked himself in the bathroom to recuperate. My baffled brother surveyed the wreckage while I continued smothering my insensitive, hysterical self.
Now, a few heartbeats later, it’s my turn to please my grandkids with toys I’ve never heard of and names I can’t pronounce. My daughter had to spell them out a few times before the syllables made sense.
“They want a bag of what?” I asked.
“It’s Bakugan, Mom,” she sighed. “Bravo, alpha, kilo …”
While I was still dipping my toe in Pokémon, Bakugan took over. Not only is it a hit TV show, it’s also a board game with more than 200 belligerent plastic balls that morph into warriors ready for battle. You’ll need a college-level course to keep all the characters and battles straight; to distinguish Dragonoids from Gargons; to memorize the rules and become fluent in Bakugan history. Here’s a typical excerpt from Bakugan Wiki:
“In Evil Arrival, Spatterix was seen with Stronk and the other Nonet Bakugan telling the rogue Mechtogan Coredegon, Slycerak, Exostriker and Mandibor that they overestimate their abilities.”
Yikes. Now that karma has gotten around to me, I can almost hear my dad laughing as I adjust my glasses and mutter to myself. No, it’s not easy to fill his slippers, but I look better in crimson.
Jan A. Igoe hopes you enjoy Groundhog Day and steer clear of Cupid and his arrows. Join us at HumorMe@SCLiving.coop any time.