Toys “R” Me
Last week my wife and I did something not a lot of married couples make time to do anymore. We packed the kids up and sent them to my mom and dad’s, then we turned the lights down real low…
And then we left the house to go Christmas shopping in mid-November.
This is a record for us. Since we had our first child almost six years ago, it seems the Christmas shopping has been done later and later. The reason why this happens is simple: when you have children you don’t have any time or money, which are the two most essential ingredients to Christmas shopping.
Last year, for example, we went shopping for the kids on December 21 and then power wrapped for eight hours after. The Christmas of 2012 we were so late doing it that as my kids unwrapped gifts I took the used paper into the kitchen and quickly wrapped their next one. In 2011 we actually went to 7-Eleven and bought Christmas gifts that morning. To this day my son still plays with that Taquito and director’s cut of the movie “Porky’s we got him.”
But this year due to some strategic savings and a little bit of luck, we found ourselves with both the time and financial well being to get that shit done early. And so we took off with the idea that we’d get all our Christmas shopping done more than a month in advance.
The only problem is that I’ve never shopped with time to spare before. Usually we’re buying stuff in such a rush that I’m sprinting through Target to get a specific DVD or video game while the kids are sleeping in the car. Not wanting to wake them up, my wife would just slow down enough while driving by for me to hop out; I’d basically just jump onto the trunk and hold on for the ride home.
This year, though, we had time to browse which led me to a startling realization:
I love toys.
One of our stops was Toys “R” Us and I swear to you that I was a bigger pain-in-the-ass than most of the kids there. Everything I saw, I wanted. Every toy that was sitting out, I wanted to play with. I felt like I was five all over again.
The reason this happens to guys like me is because of a little genius move by toy companies. I’m 32 years old and my youth was spent playing with awesome shit like Transformers, Legos, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Wrestling action figures, and super hero stuff.
This guy was like $80 which makes me question whether it was worth it. Ok, I’m done questioning now. SO worth it.
Walk through the aisles of Toys “R” Us today and what will you find? Awesome shit like Transformers, Legos, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Wrestling action figures, and super hero stuff.
Really, it’s genius marketing that “coincidently” all of this stuff has become popular again right around the time my generation started popping out kids. This didn’t happen with my parent’s generation at all and so companies got smart.
Growing up, my dad and his brothers spent their days playing with shit like sticks, dirt, sling shots, dead animals, and the occasional hunk of wood. Needless to say, when my generation came around and we had video games and He-Man it was hard for dads to relate. This led to fathers everywhere putting definite articles in front of toys they didn’t understand. Raise your hand if your dad ever said something like, “You damn kids these days always just up there playing your the Nintendos.”
That’s right, no matter what they couldn’t understand that you didn’t have to put the word “The” in front of it. You could just say “Nintendo.” But they couldn’t figure it out.
Also, from that point forward every video game system ever made was a Nintendo to that generation. I never understood it.
But now that I have children of my own I see toys sitting on the shelves just like I had as a kid and I get all excited. This leads to exchanges like this where I say: “Oh! We need to get this four-foot tall Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle! I would love that!”
“What did you say?” my wife will ask.
“Jace would love that. I mean Jace would love that, not me.”
And before you know it I’ve got a pair of nunchuks in my hand or doing my best Michael Keaton/Val Kilmer/George Clooney/Christian Bale impression and saying, “I’m Batman” in the graveliest voice I can muster.
Meanwhile she’s off pretending she’s not married to me and secretly downloading the e-Harmony app on her phone.
Needless to say, we didn’t get down three aisles and the cart was already full of completely awesome toys for my son.
“This is going to be the best Christmas ever!” I’d say. “Jace is going to love all this stuff!”
And then my wife would remind me that we have two children.
“Oh, right. Emma.”
Then we walked a few aisles down and into a tidal wave of pink. I was overwhelmed, confused, and disoriented. I didn’t grow up around any little girls and so the world of dolls and dress up is foreign to me. I tried to pick stuff out for my beautiful, sweet little three-year-old girl and kept coming back to questions like, “I wonder if she’d like those giant Incredible Hulk hands or that NERF gun bazooka.”
“What do you think about this?” my wife would say, holding up some pink little something or other or such-and-such.
“I think she’d like it,” I would say while not paying attention at all and just looking at the back of the sweet ass Lego Batcave sitting in the cart that I picked out for my son.
“Are you even listening to me?” she’d ask.
“You’re right, that does look like it would break,” I replied as I let out a giant roar on my son’s new Transformer dinosaur.
Eventually my wife gave up and just picked out some cute little girl things but we fell way short on getting her the same number of presents as my son. I told my wife not to worry, though, as we could just pick a few things up here and there in the next few weeks.
“Like what?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I replied. “I was thinking gas cards, maybe.”
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Originally published at www.bigfunnyblog.com on December 2, 2014. To follow more posts like this, like our Facebook page at Facebook.com/bigfunnyblog.
