A walk through the toy aisle

We went Christmas shopping yesterday and are still trying to recover from the onslaught. Taking a page from our own advice, we went to one of Our Better Stores in a stand-alone building (Okay, it was the Sears on First Avenue in Seattle – the oldest continually operating Sears store in the country, btw) everything was fine for a time – until we entered the toy department.

In case you haven’t noticed, children’s toys are becoming both dangerously vulgar and incredibly cheap in their assembly. I can’t imagine that any of these toys would last beyond Christmas morning – and even if they did, the poor parents would go broke just on the cost of replacement batteries. Even the stuff for the toddlers needed batteries.

Generally speaking, the boy’s toys were bad, but the girl’s toys were insufferable: Everything was pink and frilly and just really gross. We are not of the school of thought that “gender specific” toys are bad (although we do admit a weakness for a certain rambler style metal dollhouse we once knew) but this is taking the whole gender thing to a new and disgusting level. These toys are designed to raise a nation of bimbos.


A shining example of what I am talking about

The general look of the toy department was sort of like the back of the St. Vincent de Paul store on a Monday morning when people have dumped a bunch of garbage off overnight: A depressing heap of cheap, tacky plastic. All that was missing was an ugly plaid couch or two.