Senior Toy Citizens

Toys get old. Just like people, toys get old and brittle. Broken hips, cracked gun holsters, loose knees, lost heads. Their plastic goes yellow and spotty, hair falls out and for some reason clothes fall off. I’ve seen the baskets of balding Barbies tangled naked and stained in laundry baskets on the floor of a toy seller’s booth. Their feet half chewed off, hair knotted and hacked. But all through this aging process toys just keep smiling. Like the happy three-legged dog, dolls don’t lose their optimistic grin. Super heroes never lose their heroic jawline. You don’t see plastic surgeons for Ken and Theresa. A Power Ranger with a hip replacement? Never. They age with grace. Not always with dignity, see the above comment about the laundry basket. But toys get old and each time I pack them away and bring them back out they are a little less than they were. Weapons are long gone, wheels go missing, a horn is chipped or a shoe has cracked. But they still they are toys, faded but joyful. I wonder when I will tire of them. I wonder if my collection will someday end up in the hell that is eBay. I wonder if they have a heaven like the island of misfit toys. I hate finding their little feet or hands in the bottom of a box. I groan when a White Ranger looks as though he has been smoking for 40 years and is nicotine yellow from exposure to light. I promise to repaint them. I hang on to the little pieces with determination that I will glue them back on. I know that I won’t. And someday some little kid will find it for sale online and be thrilled that he got a super rare original Megazord with one hand and missing his stegasaurus horns. I’ve rescued more than my share of olden toys. And as long as there are sentimental people like me toys will have old age homes to be cared for in. They will have someone to dust them and place them carefully on shelves for admiration. And hopefully someone to find clothes and dress them.

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