The Evil Toy

This is one of the versions of the "Farmer See and Say that is available today.  Note the handle, cleverly disguised as a smiley face, high up there on the right.  This was a huge marketing advantage for this toy, as it not only enables small children to be able to play with it by themselves, but also makes it more difficult for Mommy to destroy.

This is the older version...the one my (at the time) mother-in-law gave Chandra when she was two.  Note the ring on the lower right.  That ring attached to a string which needed to be pulled for the "Say" part to happen.  The idea was to point the central arrow at the picture of the animal, and then pull the string to hear the sound:  "The sheep says, baaaaah."  The problem was that a toddler couldn't yank the string hard enough.  I've seen lawnmowers with strings easier to pull!  The other issue:  the internal works tended to slip, leading to such anomalies as, "The frog says oink-oink," and other annoying scraps of misinformation.

I tried a hammer, at first.  The hard plastic shell was impervious.  Eventually, I realized the obvious and simply cut the string.  "Oops...sorry, honey...it's broken.  Now we must throw it away."

The gift made me realize how much my mother-in-law hated me.