Toy Bender

It’s raping time!

While I was on a business trip this last week the toy world exploded with news of a killer Chinese toy… again. This time the deadly stalking death wasn’t brought about by lead paint, instead it was brought to us by the lovely world of ingested chemicals. In one of the most bizarre twists in toy history ever, some Aqua Dots contained a chemical that would basically turn it into a date rape drug inside the human body. Why didn’t I know this? I could have saved a fortune on black market date rape drugs.

Let’s put aside the fact that toy dangers are in a hyped up media hysteria akin to shark attacks reports a few years ago and focus on just how dangerous these Aqua Dots really are. If you swallow them, you get sick and/or possibly die. The first case that was directly linked to the beads was a two year old boy who had gone into a coma. Even worse was the case of a 13 month old getting sick from Aqua Dots. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that a baby shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near a toy that consists of hundreds of small beads. That’s like leaving a dog alone in a room with a raw hamburger filled wedding cake. The kid’s parents believed that she might have ingested more than 40 Aqua Dots pellets. How is it even possible that these parent’s left their child alone long enough to eat 40 pellets? I realize that kids will do some crazy things even if left alone for a second, but 40 pellets? The recommended age for Aqua Dots is 6 to 11 years. I believe some parents severely beaten for leaving their toddler alone with an obviously dangerous toy, even discounting it’s bizarre chemical make-up.

One of the most startling cases of Aqua Dots poisoning was of a girl well in the recommended age bracket. “…a mother… found her 10-year-old daughter motionless. Then, the girl began vomiting beads.” Isn’t ten a time in a kid’s life when eating toys is a little passe? I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that this kid is stupid and should have known better than to EAT A GOD DAMN TOY.

I think a recall of Aqua Dots is about the worst thing that the company Spin Master Toys or any government agency could do is to have recalled the product. Instead a system should be put in place where every family in America gets an Aqua Dot toy. This would accomplish two things:

1) It would help determine who is an unfit parent when a toddler turns up sick.

2) Any kid who should know better and still eats the beads will be weeded out of our society.

I think this is pretty much a win, win situation for everyone.