Your Child’s New Obsession – From Inception to Garbage Bin
Leave a commentApril 19, 2018 by Katia
First they snub the prototype (a cake-shaped squishy they’re introduced to for the very first time by fellow patrons at an Italian restaurant) with a superior shrug ‘no, thanks’.
Next they announce that the continuation of their lives depends on the ownership of squishies and following the protocol, they launch a campaign. Smelling the familiar scent of victory, they throw in – as a sign of good will – a symbolic amount our way to be put toward the purchase of squishies as gifts.
They select two identical sweet-smelling bread loaf squishies, and make all of their friends and friends’ friends and not so close friends and parents and dog-walking neighbours look at them. The realization that this is IT in terms of squishy versatility and repertoire must be sinking in.
As time elapses the squishies generate an “11” (on a scale of 1-5, 1 being ‘passionate’ and 5 ‘hysteric’) in outbursts of emotion, but only upon realization that the objects are missing.
The squishies, as all other midlife toys (three days to two weeks post-purchase) now evoke indifference and hysteria depending on their status (present or missing) and start resurfacing in off-the-beaten-track locations such as the bathroom cabinet and more popular destinations, like the parents’ bedroom.
Eventually, after a three month hiatus and permanent pendulum shift toward ‘who dis’ one of the squishies is torn in half. As I’m being invited to believe by a tall-for-his-age, dark and handsome sweet talker, this act of benevolence (one swift gesture, as I imagine it) was actually meant to promote progress in science.
Today a salad bowl mysteriously emerges and is being filled with water with great urgency. Some pyjamas are stripped and toes exposed, other onesies are just as deliberately kept on. One fifth of the squishy (now recognizable only to the original investor) re-emerges as the subject of an enticing build-up. This is not merely a squishy, but a far worthier object – a sponge which probably once served as a sponge (to another family) and we will now demonstrate! Something!
Currently an ever expanding and disintegrating piece of “squishy” is being repeatedly soaked in an ever diminishing murky puddle of water in an aluminum salad bowl. A naked boy pulls it out, profusely dripping, and demonstrates its effectiveness as, presumably, a sponge. Another boy – draped in fleece onesie – completes the process of demonstration of the effectiveness of the sponge as a sponge, by rolling around on the floor and absorbing few of the puddles it leaves with his onesie.
This is my cue to exit. This isn’t how I wish to remember the squishy.
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We’ve gone from Pokemon cards to spinners with a brief stop-over at Gogos. Squishies, Bey Blades – what is your child’s current obsession?
Photo credit (featured image): Photo by Charles Deluvio 🇵🇭🇨🇦 on Unsplash
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