I was in the bathroom the other day, minding my own business, when I found some porn. The tattered edges of the glossy magazine stuck out behind the toilet, placed there in case one needed to pass the time, or had the time for unperturbed perusing.
It’s not your average stuff either, but I wasn’t surprised.
It’s Playmobile Porn, not Playboy. At least that’s what I call it, as it does border on an obsessive need. My kids need to look, and look again, and mark the pages of what plastic humongous item they NEED to have. Some of this stuff, in fact most of it, costs more than my first car. Or second and third car, come to think of it. So I don’t buy it for them. They can save, or ask Santa, or in one superhugebonusfind at the Sally Ann, we can get the entire dragon castle set (sans dragon, but we always have a few kicking around) for $3.00, which is more what I’d like to pay.
I get it, this stuff is pretty cool. What other toys come with spy rooms and aliens and tracking devices and vehicles that light up and roam around. That is cool to me, and I’m forty. I wish there was a “real world” version that I could play with. “Look! The Playmobile hospital! The doctor is googling your symptoms!” and ‘Look! It’s the family set! With the crying child with the smelly diaper, and the mom that ran over some dog crap in the park! Check it out, the mom is crying too! REAL TEARS!”
I can remember most of my toys still, which I think means I had about 92% less than my kids have. (Here is the uphill both ways speech) I had the bugs bunny puzzle with the big ears, the big teddy bear that I thought was a mouse (Mousy) the fisher price record player and a lot of little golden books. Sure, there were a few random things in the toy box, wooden jigsaws and things to build with. There was even a puzzle made from my very own picture, which was disturbing, because I lost a piece of my head right away, and have ever since thought it may have been a bit of a metaphor.
I know that the only things of real value in the house are the same things that mattered to me as a child. Blankie gets #1 priority, as does Bunny. If we lose either of these things we are screwed, as they have been imbued with years of stink and grime and love, all wrapped up. My own blanket was such a necessity that when it formed a large hole in the center, I wore it as a poncho. At least my kids aren’t running around the neighborhood wearing a greyish bit of lumpy cotton as clothing.
Still, I am purging the house, as I was two weeks ago. Now I am on to toys. I will give away what I can, sneaking some of it into unsuspecting places that need toys in a big way (i.e. the doctors office, although that backfired a bit when the kids realized it was their own toys they were playing with) and chucking the broken, the bandaged, the hideously grotesque. Actually there is only one of those things so it might be missed. It’s a zombie head that opens into a haunted castle, with a little zombie guy that can be placed in the rooms. This too could be a metaphor in my life…so maybe I will keep that one. In the meantime, I let the kids drool over the slick layout. For now, the temptation is only toys, and I’ll gladly go with that.