The Toys Are Out to Get Me

So a pair of plastic toy keys almost made me drive off the road today. Good times. They are the keys of Beezelbub. They somehow floated up from the depths of Hell and landed in our unsuspecting minivan.

I had tossed them at Nora for her to gnaw on while we tooled around, since her behemoth molars are still causing us all to go through pure hell, and she held on to them for about 2.3 seconds before chucking them to the floor, just beyond me reach. I think Tate is holding late-night seminars on how to do such things as this, designed to drive me insane and make car rides as absolutely unlovely as possible. This week's lesson: Chucking Toys Into the Back of the Monstrous Minivan. Next week: Screaming Randomly Like a Chimpanzee Being Ripped Into by a Hippopotamus Just as Mom is Trying to Back Out of an Extremely Tight Parking Spot, Causing Her Foot To Jerk on the Gas Pedal and Almost Flatten a Blue-Hair Walking Behind the Car. I'm afraid to think of what tidbits of wisdom he'll dole out next. He's got quite the stash.

So the keys are on the floor and I'm cruising down the highway when all of a sudden I hear "SQUEAL!! CRASH!! ARGHHHH!". Yeah, the keys make noises like a twelve-car pileup. It's lovely. They emit these particularly hair-raising sounds when you press the button on the key ring part. Noises are also emitted when you breathe near the keys, look at the keys, or think about how you want to chuck the keys into a fiery inferno and do a happy dance around the fire as they die a slow death. And of course, since I could not reach the keys (Nora must have gotten an "A" from Tate in that lesson), I had to listen to the sounds of random cars involved in some type of smashup like 50003 times. And EACH TIME, I would reflexively slam on the brake because I thought someone was about to crash into me or the guard rail or something. Those keys are the dumbest thing ever.

Except for the puzzle that makes noise when the lights go on our off. Nothing like being home alone at 11 pm, turning off the lights in the family room, and hearing come out of the pitch-blackness "VRRRRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOMMMMM!!!! SQQQQQQQQQUUUUUUUUUUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!" Or when you take a step too close to a certain horrible, vicious, sadistic stuffed dog and cause the ground to vibrate or shake or something (just me that makes the floor rumble when I take a step? Great. Awesome.) and that makes the dog come alive and say "PLAY WITH ME! LOVE ME! YOU STUPID BITCH! I'M COMING TO CLAW YOUR EYES OUT! RIGHT AFTER YOU SQUEEZE MY PAW SO I SING ROW ROW ROW YOUR BOAT!!" That thing is alive. It starts talking at the most random times when no one is near it. Except me. It's fooling with my head. It's making me crazy. The stuffed dog wants my soul.

Don't ever wonder why I refuse to buy my kids any creepy stuffed clowns or weird puppets or anything. Their toys already freak the hell out of me. They don't need any help from Doodles the Killer Klown.