Toys R Not Us

Nowhere is the gap between those who have children and those who do not more obvious than when you step into a store designed for kids.

Since I am an Adult Without Children, I have no reason to step foot in these stores. The death-defying drama of jumping on the last stuffed hamster has passed me by. While I have had my tearful moments of regret at not having had children, I had no idea what I was missing. I found out today.

My lunch hour plan was to zip over to Toys R Us to pick up a “few fun items” as stocking stuffers for my Christmas visit to Vermont where I am looking forward to being with my family and the kids like you would not believe. This will be neat, I thought. I will find some cutesy stuff for the adults too, just for laughs. And off I went; innocent, childless, ToysRUs newbie me in all my holiday bliss.

When I spilled into the front door with ten thousand others, there was a line of men and women hunkered down against the wall. Their sleepless bodies were folded over shopping carts filled with bags and boxes as if they had been there since last year. The line snaked through the bike section. There was no end to it.  At first I thought they were waiting to be checked out but then realized they were RETURNING STUFF.

It’s December 21st.

I hesitated to go further but my mission called. My eyes swept the warehouse of toys. There were green dinosaurs grinning out of cellophane boxes, legions of plastic armies, board games, black and silver tee shirts, art supplies, drum sets, software programs for 2+ year-olds (I could probably use those at work), red and green puzzles of smiling boys and girls, Sponge Bob Square Pants staring at the wall. From the corner of my eye, I spotted a stuffed pony big enough for a two-year old TO SIT ON, and thought hungrily: if they had a stuffed horse a 50-something year-old could sit on, I would totally mortgage my house to buy it.

I thought: Maybe I’ll just grab Ava an aluminum pot and a wooden spoon.  She can bang away all she wants and then use it as a soup pot in her freshman year. Her Vermont parents will love the economy of it.

TO ALL PARENTS: My hat is off to you. Not only do you brave the halls of a legal nuthouse for the sake of satisfying your children’s desires, wade through the aisles of books and toys that sing and cluck and shoot and beep, and then battle other loving parents and grandparents who would kill you to grab the last ___, you also feel obligated to send those same children to college.

You are all AWESOME!