STRANGER THAN FICTION: IF TOYS COULD TALK, WHAT WOULD THEY SAY?

Forget the movie. I'm writing my own personal toy story.

Is it just me, or are toys getting a bit weird these days?

Even before the endless string of irritating political ads left the airwaves, the irritating string of new toy ads started. And don't expect any relief from these bizarre toys until after Christmas.

Take Baby Headstand. You roll her and she winds up standing on her head. What message does this send to our little girls and boys? Throw your child and cool tricks will happen. There's probably a disclaimer with the doll explaining things like "neglect" and "foster care" and "endangering the life of a child."

Then there are the Take Care of Me Twins. Yes, Virginia, these twins are fully functional, right down to the drooling and crying. Parents pay for their child to be stuck taking care of them.

Actually, this may be a very effective form of birth control. Instead of giving your child cute, cuddly dolls that smile and laugh, give them dolls that cry, drool and wet themselves. That's much more realistic.

And don't forget Kitchen Littles, a set of miniaturized appliances and food items. The ad shows a group of little girls extremely excited to find a tiny box of laundry detergent. The narrator doesn't say anything about the trip to the little hospital when one's little brother swallows the little detergent.

The one benefit of this toy is that it prepares young girls to spend the rest of their lives working with unwieldy kitchen appliances. That way they won't be disappointed when their lives become a living hell as they cook meal after unappreciated meal after ...

Not that I'm bitter.

I remember the toys of my youth, when times were simpler. We spent hours trying to figure out where the white liquid went in those tiny baby bottles sold with every doll. You tipped up the bottle, the liquid disappeared, yet nothing came out the nipple. It's still a mystery to me.

No kid today would have wanted my toys. There was "Headless Barbie," a hand-me-down from my mother. The head popped off if she suffered any sort of trauma -- specifically, being dropped, shaken or forced to passionately kiss "Dog-Chewed Ken."

My little brother had an electric car set, the pride of the family. We carefully pieced the track together, got out the cars and then watched them fly off the track. They never made the curves at speeds faster than a quarter-mile per hour.

Remember the Big Wheels back in the 1970s? They all had those hand-operated brakes on the back tires. The idea was to get going really fast, hit the brake and spin out. The commercials showed boys spinning out, to the great delight of their nearby friends. They didn't show the boys flying off onto gravel roads, getting their feet tangled up in the pedals or any of the other accidents I experienced as a Big Wheel owner.

My buddy Ray and I had a retro moment Tuesday discussing this column, remembering all the toys of days gone by. He had Silly Putty, which picked up color comics pretty well but nothing else.

Ray also had a Sit-N-Spin, but the round handle in the middle was broken off. He substituted handlebars from his bicycle, but they didn't work too well. He kept hitting them on his "spin cycle."

We both had the Six Million Dollar Man, equipped with a hole in his head so you could see through his bionic eye. In reality, you couldn't see much of anything. I also owned the Bionic Woman, who karate-chopped when you pressed a panel in her back. She also had a plate on her arm that opened to see her wiring.

Hey, they weren't the Power Rangers, but we liked them.

If I ever have children, I'm going to think long and hard before giving them any toys. You never know what repercussions may come later in life due to subconscious lessons taught today.

Old pots and pans and some Play-Doh should be safe.

~Heidi Nieland is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.