Friday, May 23, 2008

Mom vs. the toy.

Remember this little story about bursting Mateo's bubble? Well, I think I'm being punished because the toy I ordered for him is now my personal toy nemesis.



First, After I put it together and flipped the switch to "on," it didn't work. I swear the Amazon listing said it came with batteries, but apparently not based on the toys lack of spewing out the balls from its insides.

Yesterday I bought the needed batteries, so when Mateo and I got home, I put the batteries in so we could get this toy spewing balls. Of course, since I put it together a few days earlier, and I left it on the ground, Mateo happened upon it Wednesday morning and removed all balls from its inside by knocking it over. We have a cat who loves anything that moves or twinkles, so most of the balls got moved around the living room and dining area. I grabbed two balls and put one in, which easily fell into the tube, and then the second, which didn't.

So, me being the brilliant one, I started pushing the ball into the hole more and more, wondering why it wouldn't go down.

Oh wait. You're wondering where Mateo is during all this? He's sitting next to me, watching everything I'm doing and wondering why I'm sweating so much.

I grabbed the screwdriver I had to use to open the battery compartment and started so hit the ball, which made it lodge into the tunnel.

Hmm. Why would the toy peeps send this toy along with a ball that won't actually work with the toy?

Then I realized, he has another toy, with three balls, almost the same size as the balls for this toy, and I'm trying to force the wrong ball into the wrong toy. And that's why it's not working.

I spent a good 10 minutes running around the condo, trying to find a small screwdriver because the screws I needed to remove to try to remove the lodged ball were tiny. I finally got the ball out.

During this time, Mateo was playing with the parts to the toy that I had to take off in order to perform surgery.

Okay. So I got the toy back together. And since I realized that using the three balls that don't work with the toy is not the brightest thing, I searched for all the balls that came with the toy - I made sure they belong to this toy. While I was doing this, Mateo was crying and following me because he was on the verge of calling it a day and didn't have time for my nonsense.

I realized one of the balls I grabbed went to the other toy (I'm telling you, they all look the same, and the size difference is so slight, it's really hard to tell) when it wouldn't quite fit through one of the holes. I put the ball with the other toy - the toy it belongs to.

After all the balls were put in the tube, I grabbed Mateo, sat him in my lap, and turned that baby on.

Nothing happened.

After inspecting, I realized that Mateo had grabbed the ball I put off to the side and stuck it in the tube while I wasn't looking. Somehow, this ball got in, but it couldn't get out. At least, I couldn't get it out, no matter how many screws I unscrewed.

I eventually had to abandon my toy project because Mateo was on the verge of cracking and needed to eat dinner.

The toy is sitting on the kitchen table, just waiting for someone to rescue it. I swear, this is the worst 18 dollars I've ever spent.

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