It seems as if every few years some toy comes out that turns normally
level-headed adults into rampaging, aggressive maniacs who will push, shove and
stomp on anyone who dares to get in their way during their frenzied quest to
procure it for Christmas for one or more of their children.
I remember the bruises several of my friends were sporting after joining the stampedes for Cabbage Patch Kid dolls and any newly released member of the Beanie Babies clan.
And then there was the Furby, the fuzzy little computerized creature with huge eyes, that forced me to waste about 200 hours on a futile search because my young niece desperately wanted one. I ended up spending $150 on eBay to finally get one...well, actually two. For some reason, the seller insisted on selling them in pairs. But by that point, I probably would have bought a dozen of them, even if I had to mortgage the house, just so I could get some rest.
I gave one of the Furbies to my niece for Christmas and stuffed the other one into a trunk in the basement so I never would have to look at its buggy-eyed, smirking face again.
That is, until a few days ago.
I happened to see this online article about items people might have lying around in their homes that could make them very rich. As my eyes scanned the list, they locked on the words, "Original Furby, still in the box."
My heart began to pound because the value was listed in the thousands of dollars. I couldn't believe that something I'd resented for so many years now could turn me into a thousand-aire. I dashed down to the basement and rummaged through every trunk down there until I found the 27-year-old toy. I gave it a quick once-over and was relieved to see it still looked fresh and new, even after spending so many years sitting in a trunk.
I hurried back upstairs and checked out the particular color of my Furby (white with blue eyes) on eBay to see what he currently was selling for. My fingers actually were trembling as I hit the "search" key.
The Furbies like mine were selling for a whopping $25 each.
So mine currently is back in its trunk in the basement…never to see the light of day again, if I can help it.
I've heard that this year, the aforementioned stampeding and hair-pulling is over some toy called Labubu, which is described as a plush little monster with lots of teeth. I've never seen one, so I wouldn't recognize one even if it stood right in front me. But I doubt that will ever happen because according to the news, Labubus have been sold out everywhere since July.
Fortunately, no one on my Christmas list wants one. My body is much too old and rickety now to withstand hunting for a toy that might end up sending me on a trip to the emergency room after a woman built like Xena, Warrior Princess, tackles me and rips the toy out of my hands.
I don't have any children or grandchildren, so I suppose I've suffered a lot less holiday stress over the years than people who do, especially those who annually are tasked with trying find whatever toy is hot that Christmas.
About 12 years ago, however, I unexpectedly did find myself searching for yet another toy that was impossible to find, all because I wanted to do a good deed.
On that particular day, I'd stopped by the town hall to pay my property taxes, which usually are due the week before Christmas (talk about a bunch of Scrooges!), when I noticed a Christmas tree with children's wish lists attached to the branches. I inquired about the tree and was told it was there so people could choose a child's list and buy the gifts on it, then bring them back, unwrapped, to the town hall for delivery by Santa to that child. I thought it sounded like a great idea, so I grabbed a list.
I was heading directly to Concord to do some shopping anyway, so I figured I probably could pick up a few items on the list at the same time. It wasn't until I was standing in the middle of a department store that I actually took my first good look at the list. It said the child was a four-year-old girl, and the first item she wanted was Doc McStuffins.
I had no clue who or what Doc McStuffins was. My first thought was pajamas – like the Doctor Dentons from my childhood days. I headed to the kids’ sleepwear department. There, I approached a female clerk who looked about my age.
“Do you have Doc McStuffins?” I asked her.
She just stared at me.
“I think they’re pajamas,” I added. “For little girls.”
The clerk helped me look through the pajamas. We found every type imaginable, with pictures on them of every children’s character ever created. But there was nothing about a Doc McStuffins.
“Well, if Doc McStuffins isn’t pajamas,” I said to the clerk, “what do you think it might be?”
She looked thoughtful for a moment. “Well the 'Stuffins' part sounds like it could be a stuffed animal. It might be a teddy bear or something dressed up like a doctor.”
That sounded logical. I rushed over to the toy department and searched through a virtual zoo of stuffed animals but didn’t see anything that resembled a doctor…although a couple of them did remind me of my own doctor back then, especially when he didn’t comb his hair or shave.
I found a young male clerk in the toy department and asked him about Doc McStuffins. Again, I received only a blank look. I was beginning to think that this McStuffins character was only a figment of the four-year-old’s imagination.
“I've never heard of Doc MStuffins,” the clerk finally said. “Is it a game?”
I shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. It could be a brand of mattress for all I know!”
He told me to wait a minute and he’d see what he could find out. He disappeared for a short while, then returned and said, “It’s a doll from Disney… and we’re all sold out. From what they tell me, it’s also sold out everywhere else, and going for big bucks now on eBay.”
Suddenly the whole Furby fiasco and the $150 I'd had to spend, all came rushing back to me in a flash of painful deja vu.
I groaned. Leave it to me, I thought, to pick a child who wanted a gift that would require me to either go to 25 different stores or end up in a bidding war on eBay...only to get outbid during the last two seconds of the auction.
Even worse, I still had no idea what Doc McStuffins looked like. Sure, at least I knew it was a doll, but was it even a human? Knowing Disney, it could have been something like a talking wart hog.
After browsing through Target, Walmart and all of the Steeplegate Mall, I was ready to admit defeat. That's when I decided to stop at Toys R Us, just for the heck of it. Once inside, I headed straight for the doll aisle. I checked out so many dolls, I nearly forgot what a real human face looked like. Finally, I tracked down a clerk…who appeared to be human.
I was so tired by then, I mistakenly blurted out, “Do you, by some miracle, have any Doc McMuffin dolls?”
He smiled in amusement. “You mean Doc McStuffins?”
I burst out laughing. “God, I sound as if I’m at McDonald’s!”
“I think I saw one in the preschool department,” he said. “Over this way.”
The entire time I was following him, I silently prayed he was leading me to what I suspected would be the last Doc McStuffins doll in the entire state, or maybe even the entire country. We finally arrived at an aisle that had a lot of empty spaces on the shelves. My heart sank. If Doc McStuffins had been there, I was pretty sure he or she now represented one of those empty spaces.
The clerk rubbed his chin and stood staring at the shelves for a moment, then he moved aside a couple large Playskool toys so he could see what was behind them, and pulled out a small plastic package with some tiny figures in it.
“Here you go,” he said, smiling, and walked off.
I clasped the package to my chest and frantically looked around, making certain no one was going to leap out from behind one of the floor displays and yank it away from me. When I was certain the coast was clear, I finally looked at what I was holding. In the package was a small African American doll wearing a white lab coat and a stethoscope. A glittery pink and purple doctor’s bag was in her hand. She looked no older than five or six. Next to her were several tiny stuffed animals sitting on an examination table. I figured she must be a veterinarian…for toy animals.
Clutching my newly found treasure, I rushed to the register to pay for it before some sleep-deprived, desperate parent accosted me. The minute I got home, I looked up Doc McStuffins on eBay. The clerk at the first department store had been right. The doll I’d just bought was selling for five times what I’d paid for it. A variety of other Doc McStuffins toys in larger sizes were selling for even more.
So I hopefully made a little four-year-old's Christmas a very happy one that year. But to this day, I still wonder if maybe I should have tacked the following note onto the Doc McStuffins package: “Merry Christmas! But do not open this or play with it! Wait a few years and then sell it. If you’re careful with and kind to your toys, one of them very possibly could fund your college education someday.”
That is, unless it's a Furby.
# # #
Sally Breslin is an award-winning syndicated humor columnist who has written regularly for newspapers and magazines all of her adult life. She is the author of several novels in a variety of genres, from humor and romance to science-fiction. Contact her at: sillysally@att.net.
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