Joey and Wendy

When putting away your toys, I try to adhere to the established system as I understand it, and make sure all the toys are stored in the proper bins. But the interpretation differs between mommy and me, and I don’t always get the toys in their ordained location at the end of the day.

For example, I try to chunk your toys together in big categories. To me, Rescue Heroes all go together. The Rescue heroes are big—they take up an entire wall with their motorcycles, boats, spaceships and command centers. Multiple pieces, strings you pull and shoot, talking robots and a variety of missions. Rocky Canyon is your current favorite, but we found a cool Warren Waters at a yard sale this summer. The boys (and now one girl—Arial Flyer), and their assorted accessories, take up three bins. For the most part each toy has a corresponding backpack that performs some special task, and there are extra packs for the non-equipped Rescue Heroes. The backpacks are capable of a wide variety of tasks. There’s a jackhammer (for Jack Hammer); a grappling hook (for Rocky Canyon [of course]), a para-glider, a personal helicopter and a fire hose (to name a few).

When putting the toys away at the end of the day, if the toys had their choice, the Rescue heroes would be content on piling into a bin together regardless of which one is with the other. This isn’t true for all toys.

When Joey and Wendy—the couple that came with the tree house—arrived this Christmas, it was a completely different story. As soon as I unpacked them to assemble the house, I could tell these two had had enough of each other. Maybe it was long nights in freezing weather crossing the Atlantic or a year in a warehouse in China on the back of some forgotten shelf. Who knows? Either way, the whole time they were stuffed together in Styrofoam with only each other to talk to. For some toys an experience like that makes them closer, or at least friends, but not these two. Wendy wanted more than Joey had to offer—a mid-century modern design tree house with a trap door is pretty cool, but she had stars in her eyes.

It was obvious the minute the Rescue Heroes showed up to help put the house together. Wendy was drawn like a magnet to them. It’s easy to guess what happens when a small town girl from a village in China meets world famous Rescue Heroes. And it didn’t matter that most of them were clones assembled for manual labor. Wendy was infatuated.

Once the house was done Wendy and Joey posed for some photos together, but the minute I turned my back Wendy was off with one of the Rescue Heroes, leaving Joey alone.

Even though I knew this as soon as the tree house was up, I tried to deny it. Why should I interfere with the lives of your toys? Who am I to help them with their problems? So I forced Joey and Wendy together, but every time I picked up the toys after that, they were on opposite sides of the room. Now I know they don’t walk and talk, but maybe they do have lives. And maybe some of those lives have drama. Yeah, yeah, I get it, they’re toys—what do they have to complain about?

I definitely blame Wendy.

So I gave in. Now Kyle sits in a basket on top the toy shelf. The shelf can be a prominent position or a place for rubbish, depending on the day and who cleans up. Joey soon met Recycle Kyle and then other prominent toys: Einstein, Spider Man, the singing Frog (a classic from your baby days) and the Stormtrooper. Good conversation between Joey and the others on top of the shelf took the place of the action other toys experienced on the ground saving other toys from volcanoes, fires, floods and monster attacks. No, not a real exciting life, but for Joey it helped him relax and deal with his hurt inflicted by Wendy. Mostly he used yoga and meditation.

At first Wendy got around. This was my fault—some days I just tossed everyone together. No logic, no consideration for the packing plan, just pure chaos. For Wendy this was good. She was excited by the fact that she might end up in a basket full of Rescue Heroes or super villains at the end of the day.

Daytime she showed up during play, but always with a different boy toy. Joey watched from up on high, happy to be done with her, but worried about her none-the less. And it was transparent to the Rescue Heroes too. Toys like Jake Justice and Billy Blazes can’t be swayed by a doll like Wendy. They are too public. Too big. The other toys look up to them. They have to maintain an image. It wasn’t long after that new rules from Billy Blazes cracked down on Wendy and the one or two groupies the boys did have. All business was the decree. No tramps.

After Billy Blazes declared Wendy off-limits, Kyle and Joey were able to talk the other toys into ignoring her. It wasn’t hard. Most of those toys are simple-minded things from one to two years ago like the block with a picture of the ocean and the word “blue” in English, Spanish and French--just not very bright toys. Eventually Wendy quickly grew tired of these toys and moved in with the bin of misfits.

All of this was happening as the Imaginext Batman and Joker slowly took over the playroom. At first it was just Batman, Robin, the Joker and Superman. Then the Batcave, the various Batmobiles, and the other super villains. These heroes and villains hatched all sort of plans—kidnapping, extortion, bribery—you name it they were doing it. In the end, though, they were always able to go home together and be friends--unlike Joey and Wendy.

As slightly bigger but random garage sale superhero figures arrived--worn out toys just happy to have a second home—the Imaginext boys welcomed them (something about mass produced toys that make them easy to get along with). They worked together, they played together and they fought together. Even so, as expected, the newer and younger toys conducted most of the action.

Soon after, Einstein joined the pack of superheroes. I introduced him as a super villain—a corrupt version of Einstein from Chinatown looking to support a bad habit of one kind or another. I told the Joker he could help them build an A-bomb, but that was a bit too much for the Imaginext Joker (and to be fair to the Einstein toy, he would have done it to fit in, but it isn’t what he wanted to do). The other villains couldn’t take the knock-off Einstein seriously. His pot-belly, crazy hair and propensity to drone on and on without really ever saying anything the other toys understood made him an outcast. Eventually he too went to live with Kyle and Joey on top of the toy shelf.

And that’s how it is today. You have other baskets with books, puzzles, and costumes (a pirate, two Batman masks and capes, Superman, Hunter S. Thompson, Spiderman), but there’s no drama there. The worse thing that might happen is that a piece of wooden watermelon gets put with the plastic baseballs, or a mask gets put with stuffed animals (who mostly have zero personality—with the exception of maybe Tigger and Miss Peggy). No, the real drama is with the more complex toys. Toys capable of taking over the world, or befriending dragons, or capturing Superman with green plastic kryptonite.

As for Wendy, she currently lives in a random bin stuffed with older toys—none of the superheroes want much to do with her any more. I think she’s been with Lex Luthor once or twice, but even he doesn’t keep her around long and he’s famous for, well, the low I.Q. level of the women around him.

Now there’s a new bin for the bigger, badder super heroes and their villains—the one who WILL use Einstein’s bomb building capabilities at he drop of a hat. I don’t think Einstein will comply—he’s found his place among friends. But if his position slips and he finds himself stuffed in a bin with three or four other cast aways…well who know what might happen? Especially if he has to listen to Wendy’s boring stories over and over, day after day.