It’s bad when Doc, the registered Republican who used to believe in the Republican Party and its doctrine of leaving the government out of everyday life (but who did not vote for Bush thankyaverymuch), and who loses her mind daily because she lives in France where they are so up your butt with laws about raising your kids, thinks a new law is in order. But stick with me, OK.

My new law is this: If you do not have kids and you do not want kids (note there are two clauses here, both of which must be met for the law to apply), do not buy toys for your friends’ kids. Ever! You will not make the right choice and your friends will stop being your friends. Trust me.

Marc has a pair of friends, a couple, who have absolutely no designs on ever becoming parents. Ask either of them if they should want children and they both recoil like you’ve just covered them with poisonous acid. They don’t want kids. Hell, they don’t even want a pet.

It’s not that they dislike kids. They don’t really. Both of them work in the education system, though at completely different levels. And they are both involved to some degree in our kids’ lives. This is a good thing—you know, community to raise a kid and blah, blah.

BUT, man, when they bring out the gifts I want to shoot them, the pair of them, right between the eyes (must be the Republican in me).

Everything either needs batteries, already has batteries or makes other noises without batteries. And they are HUGE. For Christmas these folks gave Piglet a snail with interchangeable shells. In the package it looks really neat! One of those “Oh, cool!” gifts that really are cool until the package gets opened and the kid falls the fuck in love with that piece of shit thing that you just want to smash into tiny pieces and toss in the recycling bin.

Must. Calm. Down.

So, snail, cool shells, one’s a simple little thing that just looks neat. The other unscrews and becomes a stand-alone stacking toy—with built in squeaky toy, oh joy! The snail is interesting, too. You push the button on its tail and it rolls off causing the baby to run/crawl after it. Cool, right? Well, it would be except it plays music. Really. LOUD!! Bad. ELEVATOR. Music. And there’s no volume control.

I’ve tried putting Band-Aids over the speaker, and that helps, but then Muppet comes along and decides the snail has been healed and then we’re back to full force crappy baby tunes. Agh!

These same folks got Muppet a remote-controlled quad with a guy on it whose head bounces like one of those praying Madonnas or Taco Bell Chihuahuas you see stuck on the dashboard of old 1970s era Cadilacs in Vegas. We haven’t put batteries in it yet because honestly, the thing scares us. Not just me. Us. Meaning Marc, a grown man, is terrified of the thing too. God only knows what kind of death and destruction we’d unleash by giving that thing the juice. For now, Muppet is content to sleep with the thing like it’s a stuffed animal—it’s not, it’s really hard plastic—and we are not going to tell him otherwise. Ever. Are we Marc?

And for Pooplette’s birthday, these guys purchased for our darling, now-calm daughter a tricycle. What harm is there in a tricycle? Well, I shouldn’t point out the obvious—that Pooplette has an older brother who also has a tricycle and who amuses himself a bit too often by running said tricycle into everything moving or stationary and then laughing hysterically. Muppet’s trike has nice rubber wheels. They roll silently over hard wood and ceramic tile, and even though this is sometimes a problem (a silent child is a dangerous child) it’s usually a blessing. Pooper’s trike has hard plastic wheels, with tread that’s hard too. Muppet took it around the table for a test-drive after he ‘helped’ put it together and fell instantly in love with the loud obnoxious noises it made.

And he has not stopped since.

And I cannot make him.

I’ve tried.

Repeatedly.

I swear, if it didn’t mean more vacuuming, I’d put carpet down. In the meantime, I think we won’t be talking to these ‘friends’ again anytime soon.

And the rest of you, should you ever want to send our monkeys gifts, please consider donating to a mental health clinic in my name instead. We’re trying the pre-paid route for when #3 arrives.