Nothing to See Here…

Well, okay, maybe not the toy MAKERS but definitely the toy PACKAGERS.

Every year at Christmas, my husband spends his morning rescuing toys from packaging bondage. Those toy packagers are relentless… millions of twist-ties, plastic bits, and special super secret contraptions. Their purpose, I can only imagine, is to keep the little dollies from running away (although I think it’s overly cruel they way they SEW their long locks to the cardboard!).

Are the dolls willing participants in this toy bondage underground? I don’t know. They aren’t talking. I’m assuming they have been given a safe-word and by not uttering it, they must enjoy the tight bonds. But liberate them, we do, so the children can play with them.

Fortunately, the bondage of the toy packaging is a good warm up for the sadism of being owned by a 4 year old girl. I don’t KNOW if the dolly consented to a tattoo, but there is the permanent ink, body art they call it, all over her abdomen. And never mind that her head is not MEANT to turn all the way at that angle, turn it does and the smile never leaves her face leading me to believe she is, in fact, enjoying it. You may not know this but body piercing was actually INVENTED by 4 year old girls playing with their dolls. Oh, sure, perhaps Christmas ornament hooks aren’t the best or most sterile piercing instruments, but they do the job.

Even non-dolly toys come to us in the restraints of severe bondage. One gift Santa brought to my Jadyn was the Leapfrog Annoying Karaoke machine (I added the word “annoying” myself, in case you were wondering). After the 27 hours it took to liberate it from the packaging, we came to learn that the toy was defective. While this suddenly made it that much more attractive to ME, my 4 year old was having none of it. I spent the next two days trying to return it to its little cardboard dungeon only I just couldn’t make it work. The twist-ties, the plastic bits! Ack! It’s too much.

Instead, I think I’ll send an empty box to Toys-R-Us.

Dear Toy Clerk,

I have the Leapfrog Karaoke.

Send me an unmarked replacement liberated from its packaging or this one GETS it.

I’m serious.

JustLinda