Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Forget Chucky, Have You Ever Owned a Demonized Elmo Doll with Batteries?

When I think about it, it's no wonder kids are freaked out by toys. I mean, when I was a wee little lass, the most the toys would do to you was stare at you with a maniacal frozen stare, causing you to imagine they wanted to chew your feet off at the ankles while you stood paralyzed in fear, until you fell down because you no longer had feet, just stumps pulsating buckets of blood onto the walls of your room. It was basically a battle between you and your imagination, see?

Well wait, there was Kissing Barbie; she had a puckered face and a button on her back, which when you pressed it made her head move as if she were trying to lay a peck on Ken. Her head was hard. Rock hard. You couldn't push her nose in and cause her to look like she OD'd on Alum, like the other dolls. I had to know what was making her head so hard. 7-year-olds are curious that way...

So, my friend and I decided to do some surgery, and well, we peeled her face right off. Encased in her rubber face was a plastic skull, which I am sure James Cameron based the Terminator's skull off of. Freaked.me.out. I immediately took the face and skull and chucked them into my neighbor's yard, hoping they would mow over it before it rolled its way back into my house to attack me in my sleep.

And then there was that Winking Western Barbie. Cripes. She was like the Crypt Keeper with a makeover. And a cowboy hat. She had that one huge eye with plastic eyelashes? Again, push her back and she would wink at you as if to say, "Don'tcha worry hon, I won't KILL you!" *wink wink*. ACK!

So I had to rip her eyelashes off. And then I threw her away.

But these days, toys have batteries. And make noises. And move. And I swear they have some sort of evil soul, as they refuse to die when the batteries are obviously ready to move on.

I mean, have you ever walked past a baby doll or some battery-operated creature in the store and have it cry, yell, or bust out in song at you? I went all ninja one time on a babydoll in Kroger. Had my husband not been there to distract me with his outburst of laughter I might have been arrested. Seriously. These toys should be outlawed.

So, take the Tickle Me Elmo doll for example. That piece of...red fluffy fabric had a seizure every time you touched it, and it begged for you to "tickle Elmo again!" immediately after the minute-long, agonizing seizure. So like an idiot you did, over and over, and then you would put him on the linoleum, and watch him gyrate around. Then you would put him next to your sleeping Chihuahua, and let him scare the crazap out of your dog, and then you would put him under the couch pillow so grandma could get a good buzz and laugh. After all that fun you would give it to your kid, and the batteries were obviously getting low, because then Elmo was like, "tiiiiiiiickle Elllllmo ahhhhh...." so you think, good! I was getting bored with this thing anyway! Then Elmo gets lost in the toys on your kid's floor.

Until 2 am...

I would always go into check on my kids late at night, because we all know how stressful it can be, trying to fall asleep with toys threatening to take you down at the first sound of a snore. And even though I would always assure them that nothing was gonna happen, I would so want to say, "yeah, when I was your age I thought my Bert puppet was going to grow legs, run over to my bed and kill me!!!" But that would not help.

So once I made sure the kids were asleep, I started my way out the room only to step on something soft and hear the darkest, deepest, guttural, growling demon spawn groan I had ever heard,


"tiiiiiiiiiiiiiicklllllllllle Ellllllllllllmo aaaaaaaaaagaaaaaaaaaaaaainnnnnnn..."
This thing was royally ticked off, nearing zombie state, and threatening me for being an easily amused, ignorant human being.

Every hair stood up on my body, (and in those days of extreme child rearing there were a lot) and I stood frozen, pretty sure I was about to fall over due to freshly chewed bloody stumps. Garnering all the bravery I could, I rummaged for the crazed monster and took it out of their room. I wasn't taking any chances.

But then I regained my age and, instead of removing the batteries, I tortured my husband with the thing for about 20 minutes. Then the next morning I called my dad and had Elmo answer his "hello". Dad wasn't phased, but instead super proud of himself because he was the one who bought the possessed machine...

I buried Elmo in an undisclosed location and we left the state.



PS It was my daughter's bday today. Guess what she got? A cute little dinosaur called, Screature, who screams, growls and tries to bite your fingers off if you pet him the wrong way. I am NOT joking! Oh, and it shoots water at you, like from 5 feet away. Awesome. I'll get the shovel...

14 comments:

w said...

that danemon elmo almost made me pudi my pants.

i'm too old to be having manacardial infarctions.

first!

The Mother said...

Annoying toys with batteries in our house have a mysterious tendency to stop working. Somehow, the kids have never figured out why.

And annoying toys given by relatives always accompany the kids to said relatives' homes, with fresh, extra-long life batteries.

Ian said...

Just wanted to say that I will miss you

Unknown said...

Okay...I was wondering what that sound was coming from my backyard..you sneaked over here and buried the evil little fuzzball here didn't you?!

by the way...you know those fisher price keyboards for babies that light up and play a song when you push one of the keys? Well we had one that would play by itself..yep...now its out in our other garage scaring the crap out of anything that dares to enter...bwaaaahahahhahahahaha!

Matty said...

And to think that as a kid, I had trucks, wagons and toy guns. I remember the first time I walked past a toy in a store and it started making noises, scared the crap out of me.

Jude said...

My daughter had giant head barbie - it was just the head - cripes!!!

Have that sitting on the floor at night...

StephaE said...

Don't fill the water! And the batteries die very quickly in Screature!! LOL! No...my nephew does NOT own this...and I DO NOT HATE IT!

Cheeky Greek said...

Hey Kim! Great post! And yes, I am back...for the time being at least.

Miss Fit said...

My kids saw the vamp elmo pic and they were like "there's a wampire elmo?" lol At least it wasn't Emo Elmo. "I'm so sad, I wan't to cut myself..."

Stephanie said...

Poor Elmo! My girls loved their tickle me Elmos to death. It was a sad day in this house when he had to go in the trash bag:( lol

Vanessa said...

This is why I pee before reading your posts!!! My dad gave Big Sister a robot. It does a lot of stuff. Including, in the dead of night when all is silent, shaking its hand and saying, "Rosebud." That also almost made me pee my pants. And by almost I mean definitely.

SquirrelQueen said...

These toys could give kids a few nightmares. I still don't like clown dolls after seeing Poltergeist.

Love your cicada photo for Joan's contest. I had a Praying Mantis that hung around my patio most of last summer and almost became a pet.

Aries said...

With all those new advance latest tech toys, somethime I wish I was a kid again. Just like you say, my dolls those days just stare at me and can't move, or somethime we play with paper dolls.

This Crazy Thing Called Motherhood said...

Oh. My. Word.

This was sooooo funny. I loved it. lol I really loved it. I so needed the laugh, so thanks for that!

I am so much like you. I would get all scared by toys too and have to hide them somewhere else in the house. I loved the visual image of you flinging the barbie into your neighbor's yard....I was right there with you!!

I don't remember the Kissing Barbie or the Western Barbie though. I am off to Google it so I can see a picture of them!

(Loved the Demon Elmo picture, by the way!!!!)

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