Where Have All The Good Toys Gone?

I needed a toy bow and arrow. Curious yet? I was taping an episode of the hit cable show "Psycho Babble" for a friend of mine. I was playing Cupid. You can conjure up whatever mental picture you want of my cherubic face and body stuffed into a diaper as the god of love, but nothing will match the reality of my portrayal. As we all know, Cupid's weapon of choice is the bow and arrow. With this he can shoot the unloved, or unloveable, and create the magic. Some people need to be left unshot, but that's another story. Since I didn't want to bring any real implements of death with me, I headed to Toys R Us. (Sorry, but there is no way for me to type the cute backwards R that they use.)

I try to stay away from TRU as much as possible. It's the Bermuda triangle for children. The times I have ventured in with "Daughter" to buy someone a birthday gift or to spend one of her gift cards, it has turned into a three hour tour, that's right, a three hour tour. I thought this would be an easy task. We zip in and zip out. To quote Bill Murray, "it's like going to Wisconsin."

Things have changed at TRU. The political correct police are now in charge of inventory. I remember as a child, going to TRU, then called "Bargain Town", and finding row upon row of toys that could kill or injure me. There was also an entire row devoted to nothing but toy guns and other weaponry. That was my favorite part of the store. You could get any caliber weapon you desired to act out your childhood fantasies. You want to be a cowboy, here's your six shooter, wanna be a soldier, here's your machine gun, wanna be a Crip, here's your 9. It used to be OK to play games like that. You could play cowboys and Indians if you wanted. Well guess what....Not any more.

There are no weapons to be found at TRU, unless you want to be a pirate, a Ninja Turtle, or a Jedi. Not a bow and arrow to be found. No costumes for cowboys and Indians. The only toy guns were bright orange and shoot sponge darts. I'm probably over reacting to this. The bleeding hearts will tell me that guns kill and that children don't need to be exposed to pretend violence. Please! I played with all kinds of toy weapons and to my knowledge have never shot anyone. Have you ever been hit with a Hot Wheel track? What should we do next, outlaw race cars? Let's toughen up a little. How 'bout a nice game of Jarts? Later...Brian