As I ate my jam sandwich this morning, I had the opportunity to browse Wal-Mart’s Toyland catalog. For people not in the know, the Toyland catalog outlines all Wal-Mart’s toy deals and is guaranteed to cause your child to explode into a paroxysym of:
“Please, please, PLEASE could I have that?”
“I’ll do ANYTHING”
“I’ll do <insert uninteresting task> for <insert time from 0 to infinity>”
to attain the desired toy(s). I suspect the pressure increases as Christmas approaches. I wonder how much staying power parents really have…
So, I was perusing the catalog and know what I realized? There’s a lot of substandard stuff in there. A lot.
I suppose that’s to be expected since you can’t expect children to take very good care of their possessions. As a youngster I apparently had a predilection for disassembling Matchbox cars. If they complied willingly – good. If not? Well…apparently I was ‘less than gentle’ (let the euphemisms roll) in achieving compliance.
I still don’t remember the toys looking or seeming so cheap however. Maybe it’s my age showing, but there definitely seems to be a lot more flashy, flared plastic molding in the current generation of toys.
To add insult to injury, as I browsed though I chanced on an ad for Lego Clikits – the jewelry set for girls.
Plate – meet ground. Ground – get to know plate better.
Lego? Jewelry? Surely there was some mistake?! But no…the offending item remained on the page. Turns out, there’s an entire series of these products out there. From Starry Bangle & Rings, Sunny Stationery Set to the 2004 Advent Calender, Lego has what you want.
I died a little this morning.