By Jill Keppeler
CNHI
NORTH TONAWANDA —
I wouldn’t say my sons are spoiled, precisely ... but I daresay they don’t lack for much.
It’s not a surprise. With dozens of generous relatives and family members clamoring to see who can make the boys smile the brightest, we do seem to get a periodic influx of new gadgets and games.
Sam turned 2 a few weeks ago, and we now have a new batch of things to play with around the house, with all the fun and insanity that implies.
Some thoughts:
• Can someone tell me when and why the packaging on children’s toys got so insane?
One of the birthday items was a backyard sprinkler. Fun, eh? The kids gathered around to watch me open it, eagerly awaiting the possibility of splashing in the backyard that afternoon.
Thirty minutes later — I kid you not — I finally had removed the toy from its prison of cardboard and plastic. The kids had long since wandered off to find something more entertaining than Mommy muttering words they aren’t allowed to say.
Not only was the package taped at every possible corner (with tape so tough and tacky that sometimes the only resort was to rip around it), the toy was firmly fastened within with many of the plastic bar-and-twist-tie set-ups so common to current toy packaging. I removed 12 of them from this one, 12-inch toy package.
Maybe I’m getting old, but I don’t remember it being like that when I was a kid. What happened?
Is the idea to keep potential shoplifters from removing a toy from its packaging and walking off with it? (Hard to casually palm something and slip away when it takes you a half-hour to wrestle the thing from the package.)
Or is it something more nefarious ... like keeping customers from returning a defective toy because they’ve had to absolutely destroy the packaging to remove it? (Ultimately, the sprinkler didn’t work. I’m dreading trying to take it back.)
Just another mystery for the ages.
• The unfortunately thing about being the first in my family (in the area, anyway) to have kids in a rather long time is that, well, older family members don’t have to worry quite so much about retribution if they give the kids the sort of loud and/or obnoxious toy that normally elicits thoughts of payback.
Think drum set. (My dad actually did that. The drum set now resides at Grandma and Grandpa’s house.) But sometimes, it’s a little more insidious.
I arrived home from work a few weeks ago to find a huge box waiting on the table, and two eager little boys bouncing to see what was in it.
My one and only brother, the boys’ uncle, who’s safely in New York City and thus far away from any vengeance his sister might take for the time being, had sent his younger nephew a birthday present.
Ahem.
A bag of ... balls. Bright, bouncy, plastic balls, stuffed in a bag and ready for play. One-hundred of them.
Against my better judgment, I unzipped the bag and placed it on the floor. A smarter person would have run for cover. I stayed to watch the festivities.
The mayhem was tremendous. It was like standing in a firing squad of toddlers armed with wiffle balls. They threw them at each other, at us, at thin air. The giggles were overwhelming.
The one saving grace is that the things were so light that nothing was broken, although one ricochet did knock a framed photo off the wall and caused my 5-year-old to vanish into his room before he was sure that nothing was broken.
The good thing: The boys loved the gift. The bad news: We’re still finding balls tucked in odd corners around the house. And at 97 and counting, we’ll probably just find the remaining three when someone steps on them in the middle of the night.
The better news: One of these days, my brother might have kids. And a doting aunt would certainly have reason to buy her new nieces and/or nephews something just as fun.
I’m thinking drum set.
