The other day, I stepped on one of my son’s old toys: a 6-inch
plastic robot arm. Now I know this doesn’t make sense, but those of
you who have ordered a kid’s meal at a fast food restaurant
recently know exactly what I’m talking about.
The other day, I stepped on one of my son’s old toys: a 6-inch plastic robot arm. Now I know this doesn’t make sense, but those of you who have ordered a kid’s meal at a fast food restaurant recently know exactly what I’m talking about.
Whenever we go grab fast food, I often foolishly don’t pay attention to what the current children’s toy is until after we have ordered our food, sat at the table, and it’s too late. With this particular toy, I looked at my children’s meal as they took it out of the bag: a hamburger, a bag of fries – and a right arm in a plastic bag.
“Cool,” my son said, holding it up.
At first, I thought it must be a mistake. Then I noticed the model of a full robot in the display case. Apparently, this toy was too big to fit into the bag all at once, so it came in pieces, and I’d have to return at least more five times to get a complete body – six, if I wanted the matching hat.
Now, this probably wouldn’t be a problem for my more organized friends. But knowing me, if we came back six more times, I’d lose the arm and end up with the 10 legs sticking into a torso, and then have to explain to my son why he had a Picasso instead of a robot.
And what if I already missed something crucial like “upper body day” and my only hope of getting one was to spend hours lurking in the play area rooting around in the bottom of the ball pit?
Let me tell you, things sure aren’t what they used to be. It seems like only yesterday when you could pull into a gas station and get a whole set of international dolls with all of the necessary appendages at once.
Nowadays, most fast food toys are referred to fondly as “junk.” And that, according to just about any parent, is sugar coating it.
These are the things like a wind-up log on wheels, or a plastic Smurf in a bunny suit, that end up living inside the recliner or underneath the good sofa until your children eventually dig them out to throw at each other.
Oh, occasionally there is a big mistake and you get something useful – like once upon a time when my daughter got a stamp dispenser with her chicken nuggets.
I was excited because at first I thought this token of usefulness and practicality was the start of a whole new trend in the fast-food industry. However, since no one else in the neighborhood had one, I have a hunch the cashier had suddenly realized they were all out of glow-in-the-dark troll finger puppets, grabbed the first thing she saw on the back counter, and tossed it into the bag.
But these days, there is a whole new line of fast food toys that I will refer to as “No-matter-how-many-burgers-you-buy-your-kids-will-never-have-the-complete-set, sucker” category.
So I did the only thing I could think of: I went home and called some of my friends.
“I’ll give you an arm for a torso or a leg,” I said to Lisa. “And I’ll throw in an Oscar Mayer hot dog whistle and a talking stuffed Chihuahua.”
“Right or left arm?”
“Right.”
“What does the Chihuahua say?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “It only speaks Spanish, but my daughter can translate.”
“Deal!”
Then it occurred to me that with a little luck and persistence, I might be able to trade my way up to a whole robot. So I quickly hung up the phone and dialed my friend Julie.
And, as I waited for her answer the phone, I realized that it wasn’t so hard to beat the system after all.
That is, until my worst fast food toy nightmare comes true – a 500-piece jigsaw puzzle.
