Possessed Toys

First it was Jessie, or whatever the name is of the cowgirl in "Toy Story."  I picked her up off the couch and she began to run through her repetoire of phrases.  Very carefully, I set her on the coffee table and she desisted.  It took a long time to get to sleep that night and, just as I dozed off, the damn doll began to yodel!  After I disengaged myself from the ceiling fan, I picked her up by the head and placed her in one of Ethan's toy bins.  She subsided, muttering.

A day or so later, I found her in the trash.  I assumed she had done the same to Vanessa, and carried the bag out to the trash can without a word.

Tonight, as Vanessa went in to take a shower, I heard some tinkling electronic tune coming from that general direction and assumed she had turned on the music box attached to Eli's swing...except that she came out and asked me if I could hear the music.  We tracked it down to the garage, where it fell silent.  Pointing to a box, she said, "Maybe it's that toy that the church ladies gave Ethan for Christmas..."  The toy was a sort of truck that a child is supposed to ride.  It plays tunes and makes siren noises and has other attributes designed to drive nuts any parent who has any remaining vestige of sanity.  Fortunately, Ethan was too large for it, so Vanessa was saving it for Eli--that was to give her a couple of years before having to put up with it.  It began to play the tune again as soon as I picked it up.  I tried pushing various buttons, but it just made more sounds, and nothing appeared to shut it off, so I brought it in, figuring it needed a battery-ectomy.  As I struggled to cut through the packing tape with which the partial box was securely wrapped, batteries shot everywhere, and STILL it continued to chirp out its obnoxious tune.

Vanessa said, "There had BETTER be batteries in there somewhere, or I'm going to buy a gun and shoot it!"

Eventually, I found a place that looked promising and Vanessa found a phillips head screwdriver, and the cover was popped off to reveal...batteries!

Surgery was performed, and the toy replaced in the garage to await he growth of its owner.

After we had caught our breath, Vanessa told me that Jessie wound up in the trash at Ethan's behest...apparently, she freaked him out, too!

Whatever happened to toys that don't sing, talk, belch or yodel?