Giant Room O'Toys(tm)
Jan. 2nd, 2008 11:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sanpaku_backupI have another surefire million-dollar idea that I honestly can't believe no one has come up with yet. This is after all of you missed the ability to get in on the ground floor for the Wedding Music Satellite.
So: the days of looking forward to vacations -- long mornings spent sleeping in, watching TV, and drinking coffee -- are over.
In their place are days of dread at having to figure out what the heck to do, in the absence of preschool, with the hours between 7 am and 8 or so pm. At home the kids rape and pillage through the house, generating massive piles of filth and toys, while constantly fighting with each other about everything. Television is a short-term solution at best, since television creates a demand for more television as well as constant whining about everything else in the day, plus it's annoying. All the adults can do is watch the mess pile up while not accomplishing anything and bickering over God Would You Please Get Them Out of Here for Just Five Minutes So I Can Have a God Damn Cup of Coffee Jesus Christ.
The other children in the playgroup have been taken wherever it is that goyim go this time of year. It's bitterly cold, so playground and zoo are out. Thanks to the fascist librarian, the toys that might have amused a 21-month-old have been removed for no good reason, making any trips there very short in duration. And car trips of longer than 20 minutes or so involve being repeatedly subjected to shrieking children's music that has long since lost its charm.
After years of searching under every rock we could, we have evolved the following places to flee to -- none of which will kill more than, maybe, 45 minutes:
And when you have day after day to kill, including major holidays... this gets kind of... awful.
It's on days like this that I mutter, repeatedly, "Giant Room O'Toystm," to no one in particular.
Familiarity breeds contempt, and it's a well-known phenomenon that your kid relates to any toy more than five minutes old with indifference bordering on ridicule. But you see, another kid's toys are another matter entirely. I have seen my five-year-old play eagerly with the exact same toys at another kid's house that she ignores at home.
So, what the world needs is a room in the mall or somewhere. A Giant Room full of cheap blocks and dolls that other kids have already rejected. You pay a few bucks for your toddler to enter the room. A Responsible Adult takes the money, watches Rosie O'Donnell, and keeps the door closed while your toddler attacks the toys. And computers and crappy videos in white puffy boxes playing, whatever. An hour or two, is all you need. And your kid will constantly beg to go back to the Giant Room O'Toys.tm
Now, I know you are going to tell me that we live in a society in which this is impossible. Sanpaku, once again you are indulging in your romantic fantasies about the 1950s, like that one ad in Mommy Knows Worst showing all the babies in their strollers parked outside the supermarket. What you're talking about is basically something called "Drop-In Day Care," which has many litigious government regulations and forms to fill out about not bringing peanuts in or what have you.
But here's what I have to tell you in response:
It really does exist.
Where? In Pittsburgh, of course.
Well, not exactly in the way I've described it. But if you go to the gigantic Giant Eagle near Village Square, they have a Room O'Toys that you sign your kids into and go shopping. And something that we would gladly pay money for... is free. How do you like that.
But we do not (yet) live in Pittsburgh. We live in a state that has very, very few places to go for an inclement-weather afternoon, all of which have at least some drawbacks that make them less inviting than they seem. And, now that it is January 3rd and preschool is blessedly back in session... I might get about to writing about them a little bit over the next few days. Wish me luck.
So: the days of looking forward to vacations -- long mornings spent sleeping in, watching TV, and drinking coffee -- are over.
In their place are days of dread at having to figure out what the heck to do, in the absence of preschool, with the hours between 7 am and 8 or so pm. At home the kids rape and pillage through the house, generating massive piles of filth and toys, while constantly fighting with each other about everything. Television is a short-term solution at best, since television creates a demand for more television as well as constant whining about everything else in the day, plus it's annoying. All the adults can do is watch the mess pile up while not accomplishing anything and bickering over God Would You Please Get Them Out of Here for Just Five Minutes So I Can Have a God Damn Cup of Coffee Jesus Christ.
The other children in the playgroup have been taken wherever it is that goyim go this time of year. It's bitterly cold, so playground and zoo are out. Thanks to the fascist librarian, the toys that might have amused a 21-month-old have been removed for no good reason, making any trips there very short in duration. And car trips of longer than 20 minutes or so involve being repeatedly subjected to shrieking children's music that has long since lost its charm.
After years of searching under every rock we could, we have evolved the following places to flee to -- none of which will kill more than, maybe, 45 minutes:
- Children's section of Barnes & Noble in East Greenwich (really, they should just call it a toy store)
- Petco (poor man's zoo, but at least it's heated)
- Model train store (repeated trips to play with Thomas table without purchase earn the hairy eyeball from the proprietor... What's HIS problem?)
- That One Mall (merry-go-round)
- Warwick Main Library (a few toys might make H happy, might not)
- Uh... shopping? Need anything at the store, dear? PLEASE TAKE ONE OF THEM WITH YOU PLEASE GOD
And when you have day after day to kill, including major holidays... this gets kind of... awful.
It's on days like this that I mutter, repeatedly, "Giant Room O'Toystm," to no one in particular.
Familiarity breeds contempt, and it's a well-known phenomenon that your kid relates to any toy more than five minutes old with indifference bordering on ridicule. But you see, another kid's toys are another matter entirely. I have seen my five-year-old play eagerly with the exact same toys at another kid's house that she ignores at home.
So, what the world needs is a room in the mall or somewhere. A Giant Room full of cheap blocks and dolls that other kids have already rejected. You pay a few bucks for your toddler to enter the room. A Responsible Adult takes the money, watches Rosie O'Donnell, and keeps the door closed while your toddler attacks the toys. And computers and crappy videos in white puffy boxes playing, whatever. An hour or two, is all you need. And your kid will constantly beg to go back to the Giant Room O'Toys.tm
Now, I know you are going to tell me that we live in a society in which this is impossible. Sanpaku, once again you are indulging in your romantic fantasies about the 1950s, like that one ad in Mommy Knows Worst showing all the babies in their strollers parked outside the supermarket. What you're talking about is basically something called "Drop-In Day Care," which has many litigious government regulations and forms to fill out about not bringing peanuts in or what have you.
But here's what I have to tell you in response:
It really does exist.
Where? In Pittsburgh, of course.
Well, not exactly in the way I've described it. But if you go to the gigantic Giant Eagle near Village Square, they have a Room O'Toys that you sign your kids into and go shopping. And something that we would gladly pay money for... is free. How do you like that.
But we do not (yet) live in Pittsburgh. We live in a state that has very, very few places to go for an inclement-weather afternoon, all of which have at least some drawbacks that make them less inviting than they seem. And, now that it is January 3rd and preschool is blessedly back in session... I might get about to writing about them a little bit over the next few days. Wish me luck.
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no subject
Date: 2008-01-03 02:46 pm (UTC)Also:
God Would You Please Get Them Out of Here for Just Five Minutes So I Can Have a God Damn Cup of Coffee Jesus Christ.
Have you been spying on my house? That sounds really familiar.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-03 03:15 pm (UTC)And, oh yeah, I have ESP. It's uncanny, ain't it?