With apologies to Chuck Palahniuk

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Geez, talk about hypersensitive parents. A few castrated toddlers and suddenly you've got the biggest toy recall of the year. You have to give Mattel credit, though; they had to recall twice as many toys three years ago during the whole sorry-we-sold-you-poison-toys thing. So, you know, they're getting better.

I guess they just don't make toys like they used to. Which is to say they're only hurting kids by accident now. Back in my day, toy companies and parents actively conspired to murder children.

Don't believe me? Consider the Fisher-Price toys I grew up with vs. the ones with my daughters play with:

Without dwelling on the fact that they're mostly quadruple amputees, you'll note that the older toys were also specifically designed to accommodate a two-year-old's trachea.

Or, uh, other orifices.

Forget your orange and yellow plastic; our toy guns looked real enough to convince police officers to return fire. Our dolls were insane cannibals that devoured our hair and ripped off our scalps. We played with MOTHERFUCKING LAWN DARTS, because our idea of fun was a murderous rain of steel spikes that could and did pierce skulls. We didn't use car seats, but if we had the seatbelts would have been razor wire, the better to cut us in half when dad braked suddenly.

Our childhood was a Darwinian crucible that consumed the weak. Back then, you could take a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to school without getting hassled, because all the kids with allergies had died on the first day of kindergarten.

It was a pretty awesome time to be alive, actually.

-Graham

 

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