My mom flew in tonight, and happened to pass through Denver on her way into Indy. I was getting ready to head out (takes two hours to drive to the airport) when she called me from her plane and said, “There’s been an incident, and our flight is delayed.”
“Incident?” I replied, trying to sound calm, because when a word like “incident” is used at an airport it usually means, “HOLY MOTHER OF GOD [insert calamity]”—requiring an airport lockdown, or twenty hours on the runway in planes where the toilets are leaking into the aisles.
“An incident,” my mom emphasized. “They won’t tell us anything else.”
Yeah? Well, this is what they wouldn’t talk about.
My mom was delayed several hours. On the way home we stopped at Walmart. It was 3 a.m. Quiet. Nice. Peaceful. Until I saw this (see below, click to enlarge)—an entire display of Baby Alive dolls—and I swear my head nearly exploded. Honestly, I know I’m out of it—heck, when I was a kid I played with nothing more mundane than My Little Pony and Strawberry Shortcake—but this?
Read the box advertisement for this doll: She “learns” to use the potty and really “PEES” and “POOPS”!
That’s a selling point? In a doll? A doll that parents are supposed to pay $39.88 for? Oh, and check out the hole in the packaging that says, “TRY ME.”
Right. I don’t think so.
If I stretch my imagine a lot I can see the manufacturer promoting this doll as a tool parents can use to potty train their kids, but even so…even so…what’s wrong with these people? Call me old-fashioned, or a dud, or whatever—but a doll that poops? What does that even look like?
Oh, my poor head. I need to go rest.