Toy Story

Woody's revenge.

My house currently looks like the set of Married with Children, only all the brown, orange, mustard yellow and avocado green accessories have been swapped out with red, blue and yellow bright, shiny, plastic toys, a menagerie of primary-colored weapons. And all of them talk, squeak, rattle, honk, scream, "sing" or have insanely sharp edges that dig into the bottom of my oh-so-tender feet.

When I look around, I can just see them conspiring to get underfoot. The legos and matchbox cars seem to have a particular hatred for my pedal welfare.

It is not that I don’t blame the children. I most certainly do—had they not graced my life with their presence, I would be surrounded by McCoy, Frankoma, and noisy, domestic short-hairs. (Okay, that description paints a very sad picture when I read it back. Thank god, they arrived before my house was covered in afghans.)

But let’s be honest, the children did not buy the toys, they have zero purchasing power…I did. I got myself into this mess, this jungle of miniature enemy forces. Well, me and a generous bunch of well wishers, and let’s not forget, MaryEllen. She brought in the big guns! But, the majority of the responsibility falls on me. I invited them in.

When I look at all the toys, toys under the bed, in the toilet, run through the laundry (some survive, others perish), I wonder why they hate me. Why they insist on being in my way and hampering my progress.

Is it because they are being tortured? Do they not enjoy the grips of death, the battery of abuses, the drooly teethy-bites? Are they upset having been ripped from their hermetically sealed boxes, and flung onto our dusty, crusty, cat-hair carpet? I can’t imagine what would bother them in such a privileged existence?

I don’t know why they annoy me to the degree that they do. I promise you, they are not like Woody and Buzz in the movies. They don’t engage in delightful dramas, which occupy the children for hours. They don’t find there way home from the pizza parlor. Or rescue nasty children from their own devious nature.

No, they find there way under the bathmat, so I trip in a slippery heap and stub my last usable toe. They are without question, in every way, unhelpful.

Do you think if I put out a suggestion box they would tell me what the hell makes them so utterly intolerable? If I met their FisherPrice demands would they make their way into the thousands of dollars worth of Martha-esque labelled Tupperware bins I own. Would they seal themselves back into the airtight enclosures they arrived in? I doubt it.

It is obvious, they aren’t happy. And anything or anyone unhappy is not motivated to work well with others. I can only hope they are in that state because they have given every ounce of their happiness away. They have emptied their giddy reserves. Not on me —obviously, but the kids. They have sacrificed their joy for those little monster’s merriment.

In the end, I hope it is worth every bandage and yelp for mercy. From what I can tell we move swiftly from plastic fruit to slamming doors. I suppose it is better to be sharing my space with an inanimate action figure than an indigent teenager.

I will try to shut up, lick my wounds and capture those renegade toys. Because truthfully, I can snatch them up and snap a lid on them and keep them forever as they are, if I try hard enough, but the children…not so much.