When I was a child, I wanted nothing more in the world than a dog. Before every big gift-worthy occasion or holiday, I ceaselessly begged my parents. Birthdays, Christmastime, good report cards, Thanksgiving, Memorial Day… you name it! I made highly sophisticated presentations complete with graphs and charts, outlining the case and expertly arguing my side like a junior attorney. And I never let up on the dream. In response and over time, my parents bought every form of “alternative” pet in an effort to appease me. I had fish, hamsters, a rabbit, a turtle, birds… Eventually, they buckled a little and allowed me to get a cat. Thus, Arthur…

At least once a night, after my daughter has gone to sleep, one of her talking toys comes to life on its own and pipes up with some stupid phrase from the bottom of the toy basket. It’s pretty creepy but I’ve grown accustomed to it, and I’m sure there’s a reasonable, non-ghost explanation as to what hairpin triggers these toys to go off. Last night, I heard her anthropomorphic picnic basket cut my peace and quiet to tell me “an ORANGE is orange!” Well no kidding. It wasn’t the stupidly obvious statement that bugged me, but the way that he (or she?) said it. In that singsong, saccharin fake…

As Toys R Us is on the verge of closing all locations following Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and Geoffrey the Giraffe is served his generous severance package after more than fifty years of unwavering company loyalty, I’ve been thinking a lot about the topic of toys. On the one hand, I’m deeply grieved by the end of an era in which toys held their own special space in the retail realm. When toys were not just five aisles of cheap plastic crap in a big box store of sixty. An afterthought at Walmart or Target because your kid was being particularly well-behaved on the monthly stock-up trip. Or something you order…