all fun and games

I have been told throughout my life that I would make a great mom. Probably because I behave like a child. I may have children. I may not. I have no idea. But I do know that if my kids want to play with Barbies, fine. If my kids want a toy gun, fine. We will have enough talks around society and all its ills, me and the kids, to make me feel I've done my part to raise a fine couple of sprouts. I don't need to barricade them in the rumpus room with Lincoln Logs and Care Bears to feel I've ensured their safety.

That said, I sometimes wish they'd put Tom Hanks back in that position he played in Big—you know, when he was a kid in an adult's body and he played Chopsticks on that gigantic keyboard and had that superfun-looking date with that woman who just didn't get it? And he got to work as a Grand Toy Judge Poobah, testing toys for a living and intermittently ruling out a bunch of them because they were bad news?

Well this is one of those toys, not the charmingly lonesome misfit toys as in that Christmas movie with the big white Sasquatch. No, just something that never should have been made. Someone on the Playmobil staff was asleep at the wheel and barreling at high speed into "what were you thinking?" territory. No surprise the thing has been made unavailable; we can only hope it's been pulled, to be replaced with some actually interesting version of a Speak-n-Spell. Well if nothing else, go ahead and read the first two comments on the Amazon site re: this toy.

Peripheral afterthough: Playmobil, Playskool—why do kids' toys in particular have to include oh so much misspelling? No wonder we're all so unable to communicate.