Bad Toy Ju Ju…

I have a thing about toys that make a noise. I can cope with musical instruments, rattles too, but toys that make an artifical, electronic noise drive me insane. It’s like fingernails down a black board…. my brain wants to squeeze it’s way out of my ears so it doesn’t have to listen to the horrible repetitive noise. I would rather dunk my head continuously in the toilet than listen to them. See… I just have a thing about noisy toys.

I normally refuse to buy anything that makes a noise. When I allowed the girls to buy a squeaking crocodile toy from Australia Zoo as soon as we got home I took a skewer and ‘fixed’ those crocs so they would never squeak again. I know, I am such a mean mother, but silly crazy noises and me just don’t mix. Of course that means that they are scarily attracted to our house, and somehow always manage to find their way in.

Most often the offending object is a gift given by well meaning family and friends and almost always the girls LOVE them. I try hard not be ungrateful, really I do. I promise I don’t automatically throw out or break any toy that offends me…. but I confess that I find myself deliriously happy when the batteries go flat or the noise stops working for some reason. I can’t help it, I have to try to keep noisy toys down to a bare minimum in our house – I am of the opinion that a sane mother is worth more than a plastic dog that barks, surely?

Yesterday a noisy toy, no, two noisy toys entered our house.

Fairy wands that at the press of a button light up and make the perfect ‘magic-has-been-made-here’ sound… “brrrRRRrrriiinnnggggGGGG!!!” The Twinadoes just about vomited with excitement when their little friend handed them over, they could not have been given a more perfect gift, ever! The little friend’s mother knew she was walking on shaky ground when she bought the damn things… but she likes to taunt me like that… she is that kind of woman!

I laughingly cursed her while the three girls played and “brrriiinnngggeedd” around her house. My curses got more serious on the drive home when the “bbbrrriiinnnggging” just about caused me to drive off the side of the road if only to end the horrendous noise coming from the back of The Big White Bus. I cursed her with a lousy nights sleep (poor woman was likely to get that anyway with a non-sleeping baby, so I swear my curse didn’t actually work) when the tears flowed as I refused to let the girls ‘Bbbrrrriiinnnggg’ themselves to sleep that night. But it was later, much later that the cursing karma turned bad on me…

We’d had a crazy day, what with Muski’s fall and resulting blood nose in the morning, a big afternoon of shopping and a wonderful dinner out with friends. A crazy, but really good day, if you could ignore the ‘bbbrrriiinnnggging’ that is, which I could, once I had all three kids tucked up in bed and the house to myself, basking in the after glow of time spent with good friends. I pottered around the house for a bit then headed to bed myself…. snuggling down next to my small boy I must have just dozed off when I was woken by something.

I stopped breathing for a second, listening hard to find out what had woken me. I couldn’t hear the girls, Muski was still snoring beside me, the Baldy Boy still out with his mates… hmm….

“bbbbbbbrrrrrrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnnnggggggggggggg”

Suddenly the dark silence was shattered by the coming of magic…. I felt like I was in a bad Disney movie and wondered if the mouse were on top of the fridge (where I’d hid the damn wands after the bed time tantrum over them) busily turning themselves into footmen for a princesses carriage….

‘bbbbrrrrinnnggg!… bbbrrriiinnnggg!’

Damn it.. what the heck was going on?

I staggered out to the kitchen, turned on all the lights on the way, you know, just in case we were actually being invaded by evil Disney mice, much better to be able to see what you are up against yeah? Ok so I was a little freaked out and a tad crazy but I wasn’t sure what I’d find pressing those damn little buttons.

The wands were still there, untouched on the top of the fridge, looking innocent… well as innocent as two evil noisy toys can look. No sign of any mice, or any other creatures for that matter. “Possessed” I muttered to myself as I picked them up, pushing a button by mistake…

“bbbrrrrriiiinnnnggggg”

“Shut up you freaky crazy wand you” I said as I chucked them in the freezer and slammed the door.

Yeeaasss… I put the wands in the freezer. It was late people, I was tired, freaked out, having crazy evil Disney magic hallucinations, it was the only thing I could think of at the time. It worked too… not another ‘bbbrrrrriiinnngggg’ was heard until this morning when I begrudgingly rescued them from their frozen hell and handed them over to the girls… and yes… they still work… mores the pity.

You know, when I think about it, this is not the first time an evil noisy toy has gone off on it’s own. Muski got a great truck for his birthday that says things when you push it around and on occasion it has been known to shout out “I’m running rough today”, totally out of the blue. The girls have a cash register that one night suddenly started up and kept scanning objects that weren’t there and wouldn’t stop till I took the batteries out.

Actually… way back before I even had kids this was happening to me. I recall a gift given to me by the family of one of my students… a little yellow ‘stress ball’ that giggled like a maniac when you threw it hard at something. It sat on our mantle piece until one night it started giggling all of it’s own accord…. freaky crazy giggling that wouldn’t stop… we had to attack it with scissors and pull it to pieces to put it out of it’s misery.

Hmm… I see a theme here.. I’ve got me some bad toy ju ju. I must have done something bad to a noisy toy as a child and now they are all coming back to haunt me… no wonder I don’t like having them in my house!

But you can rest assured, oh good friend who bought those wands, I am on the look out for some really really wonderful toys to give to your girls… to return a little of the noisy toy ju ju where it belongs!