Among my daughters' many stuffed animals is a small purple and white duck, which 'quacks' charmingly when you shake it. Like most toys these days, it hails from Asia. Well, recently it stopped quacking, and small, sorrowful kideyes were begging me to make it quack again. Because, well, I'm Mom, and I can fix anything.
Not wanting to nuke my reputation right out of the water, I agreed to perform stuffed duck surgery and see if I couldn't fix the quacker. I attacked a seam across it's back with a seam ripper and managed to work the noisemaker out of the thing.
The noisemaker looked for all the world like a black 35mm film can. I popped the top off and found quacker innards within. I dumped it out and found the problem immediately: The rubber casing of the thing was disintegrating. Inside the rubber case was a spring and a mysterious contraption made of a moving weight and a bit of colorful metal. The colorful metal looked to be aluminum recycled from an Asian soda can, amusingly enough.
As I explore the thing I determine that the noisemaker proper is working flawlessly, the sole problem is the rotting rubber sleeve. As I more closely inspect the sleeve to see if a replacement for it might be cobbled together somehow, I realize something.
The rubber sleeve is, indeed, A RUBBER.
They had the balls to name this line of toys "Playful Plush", too. More factory-wide sniggering over that one, I'm sure.
As soon as it dawns on me what the creepy, slimey, rotting thing I'm holding in my hands is, I drop it like a hot rock, accompanied by a string of choice four-letter words, uttered in a loud, disbelieving tone of voice. So loud that my husband emerges from the kitchen to see what prompted THAT aggrieved outburst.
I point in revulsion to the toy's parts. "Look at that!" I watch his face closely for his reaction.
Sadly for him, he doesn't realize what it is at first, either, and picks it up. After a moment, HE now knows what it is, too, and practically launches the thing into orbit in his haste to get it out of his hands. "Jesus!" He shoots me an incredulous, disgusted look.
"I know!" I say, before he can say anything else. "And this damned Toy From Hell won't work unless I replace it!"
Who WOULDN'T want to touch this?
He merely returns to the kitchen, laughing because it isn't HIM that has to fit a new condom in a toy duck. He does, however, volunteer to go to the store and get the needed condoms.
Now I know why this damned toy has such a look of Pure Evil on it's face, along with a creepy grin.
OK, I draw a deep breath, Mom Up and do the deed. Old condom removed, new one (lubricated, just like the old one) placed and *of course* it needs adjusting before the quacker works again. Husband makes requisite snarky remarks as to how the things never fit, now I know how guys feel, etc.
New, uh...'apparatus' in place
So for now Evil Condom Duck quacks again. Until THIS condom wears out...
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