I know there are some major issues out there: unemployment, health care, the deficit, the market tanking, moral degradation, political corruption, terrorism, hedonism, the threat socialism poses to capitalism, lack of ethics in big business, I could go on and on. All of these issues deserve our attention, but I want to bring to the forefront an issue of considerable concern: the manufacturing and consumption of cheap plastic toys.
I feel an obligation to speak out against this senseless waste of money and energy. A
isles and aisles of cheap plastic toys, bins and baskets of cheap plastic toys. More and more cheap plastic toys. And when I go to the store what do my kids ask for? Cheap plastic toys. C'mon!"Hey mom, mom, will you buy me a toy."
"No, you have enough toys!"
"Nooo
oooooo," Owen draws out his exclamation in a long high pitched moan, "I don't have any toys, I don't have anything to play with." he looks at me with sad eyes and a pitiful expression. Wow, this kid's good. Luckily, I have been around the block a few times and after my fifth child I am starting to recognize when I am being manipulated."Really, you don't have any toys?"
"Ummm hmmmmmm," Owen moans, "I have nothing."
" So what are all those colorful molded plastic objects all over my house? What are all those super heros with movable parts and muscles bulging, What are those boxes of blocks and bins of track and trains, what are all those grotesquely formed monster guys, what are those dinosaurs, farm animals, cowboys and Gi joes that I find under your bed and in the corners of your room. What are those lego bricks that I keep stepping on all over Heathdom. If those aren't toys, then I don't know why I keep picking them up and sorting them into their proper bins(a job that I despise by the way). What joy! What a discovery! If those aren't toys,
then why on earth do we have them."Great question!
Cheap plastic toys, I have decided, are a menace to society, upsetting the social dynamic of the family and the order of my home, reeking havoc on the environment, stunting the creativity of my children, and are down right driving me crazy.
So, I stand up and say No More Cheap Plastic Toys! C'mon, who is with me. Really, what do kids really need but a ball, a stick, some crayons and a box. I think that is all I had when growing up. My mom was really good at cleaning out our toy closet. That was her super human power: cleaner/organizer. She must have been super human, that is the only way I can explain the way she could enter my home and begin organizing and sanitizing and have it model perfect in one hour. Anyone who knows my mom can attest to this. My boys toy closet, on the other hand, looks similar to Sid's room on Toy Story, guys with swapped heads, pirates with broken limbs, cars without wheels, naked GI joes with beards drawn on their face. It is time I clean up. It's time to economize, to rid myself of the fat, the futile fluff that are cheap plastic toys.
Stick with the original is what I say. Every toy produced is a cheap reproduction of what a stick, ball or box could ever be on it's own.
Perhaps you think I am a making a mountain out of a mole hill. If you think so, you have never had to free said toys from their packaging. This alone would convince you of the logic of my argument. They are secured in there so tightly, mummified almost by countless twisty ties. For what purpose? I wonder if the Chinese government is trying to create new jobs by multiplying the number of necessary twisty ties by ten. You'd think the toys were dangerous to society and aren't supposed to be released to the child. I say your right. Keep them in the box. Send them back and get your child a stick, a ball or box. They will be entertained and you save your money.
That is unless your honey just had his kindergarten shots and needs to be appeased, in this case cheap plastic toys are perfectly appropriate to purchase.
