As my daughter has been (finally) toilet trained, she was promised a trip to Smyths toy store today to buy a little present as a reward. We piled into the banger at four this afternoon, the shop is fifteen minutes away, ninety minutes later we got home! The trip to the shop was unremarkable, the baby gurgling away and the two older ones bickering, ” if you don’t stop arguing we aren’t going to Smyths!” When we arrived, parked and unloaded ourselves, we headed into Hell, I mean the toy shop.
The eldest guy disappeared, the baby started grumbling and the toddler launched herself in the direction of the girly aisle, all glitter and pink! Now I was never one for dolls, I really liked craft kits and beads, those kinds of things, but my daughter loves barbie, Polly Pocket and The littlest Pet shop, what all these toys have in common is that they have loads of tiny hard plastic bits to make walking in bare feet in the living room impossible.
So there we are standing in the middle of the pink aisle, 98FM blaring out as she pulled every Polly Pocket down for five minutes of debating on each one, “will I get this one with the glittery trousers and the horse or the car that changes colour?” We spent half an hour there until she decided on some littlest pets for the pet shop and the glittery Polly. Into the car, traffic home was rotten.
When we got home my little monster was holding her toys, “Open them mummy!” So I sat down to open them….half an hour later I was still there, each of the little bits was attached with wire or plastic, I got so frustrated, got a scissors then a knife, nothing helped speed up the process. The baby had started to cry at this stage and my older son was asking me to help him with his homework, I was nearly in tears myself! Why, why? Why do they do this? Everything is sealed in a bag or box, there is so much packaging on these toys it’s insane. Are they trying to stop people shoplifting? No cos all the little tiny bits are stuck down, not just the big bits. It’s all a display thing, to make everything look right, don’t worry what it involves in taking it all apart and then putting it all back together, then what do you do with all the tiny little pieces to stop them getting sucked up the hoover or lodged between your toes at 3am!
I was so stressed, I went into the kitchen where the pasta sauce for dinner was simmering away and I poured a large glass of red wine from the bottle I’d opened for the sauce….. Polly Pocket drove me to drink!
I hate Smyths…I hate all toy shops! They may be heaven for kids but they are Hell for me!!!
Midget Wrangler 