Some Assembly Required

Once upon a time, toys came in a “ready to play with” condition. You opened the box grabbed your toy and ran off to begin the serious business of playing with your new toy. Those days are long gone. The toys which you are fortunate enough to find already put together have so many twisties and fasteners and tape or are actually sewn into the box so securely that would lead one to believe they had purchased something rare and priceless rather than a toy costing $9.99.

This morning my son, child #3, spent his own money to purchase a Bionicle. If you’ve never seen one of these lovely toys of peace and harmony, I’ve included a picture. For those in the know, we bought Mahri Toa Hahli. I hope that means something to someone, it’s all Chinese to me.

The thing came in approximately 1,000 pieces needing to be assembled by yours truly. I’m sure the “educational value” is derived from the child attempting to assemble it himself. I laugh at that idea. Ha ha ha ha. He’s just turned six and can’t resist the temptation to chew on little plastic pieces. Since this lovely creature is made entirely from little plastic pieces, there was no way I could leave him alone with it as it came. My mother has said, “Trust your children, but don’t tempt them beyond their power to resist.” Good advice, mom, thanks. So I put it together. It took an hour and several words I can’t write and still maintain a ‘G’ rating.

I am sure that somewhere in this world there are people who used to pay someone to assemble these things. There may have been an entire cottage industry in ‘ugly toy putting together’. But the person in charge understood that if the child wants it badly enough, the parents will do the work and not charge the company the way those people in China would.

Parents of the world, let’s get together on this and begin sending the toy manufacturers a bill for the amount of time it takes us to complete THEIR assembly process. I think this one is worth about $10 for the hour, but let’s add on a surcharge or $5 for every time I got asked “Is it done yet?” So I’m mailing my bill for $245 today. I’ll let you know how it goes.