Thursday, August 7, 2008

NEIN!!!!

Kinderei, hollow chocolate eggs containing toy surprises, are one of my favorite German treats. The chocolate is, well, GERMAN, so it's fantastic, and the toys, which are contained in a plastic capsule inside the egg, aren't your cheesy break-after-one-minute pieces of crap; they are really cool, and the ones that assemble are made so cleverly it's delightful to just look at their design.

They weren't sold here for a long time because Oh no! Small toys! Children will eat them and choke to death!

I chalked that up to insane American paranoia, but apparently Germany is also vulnerable.

It's amazing: the beach next to my house is strewn with small, smooth pebbles of all colors, yet each day that dawns fails to reveal a sandscape littered with the bodies of choked toddlers who tried to eat them. I walk to work, and the bushes have- buds! bright buds!_- the flowers have -- petals! bright petals!-- and yet no dead children, blue-faced and stiff, line the sidewalks after unsuccessfully trying to force tantalizing plant matter into their windpipes.

Even if your three-year-old is capable of motoring to the store, ponying up the cash, and asking for one of these things, why does it follow he or she will eat the toys? And if you have successfully sheltered your child from this most malevolent danger (in league with the Yawning Toilet of Death and the Coffee-Table Corner of Permanent Brain Damage), how do you then protect it from EVERYTHING ON THE ENTIRE PLANET that can be fit into his/her mouth?

And how do they eat actual food without putting the local chapter of the American Red Cross on high alert?

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

And where does this sudden desire to contravene natural selection come from anyway?

JC said...

It's not organic.

JC said...

I bought a Kinderei today. The prize was this odd plastic flying fish/ space monster thing that you can toss like a paper airplane. I lvoe love LOVE their stuff.

Anonymous said...

Well, one thing is sure - you definitely can't win the West with this latest generation of kids. They might choke on small parts before they get anything done.

JC said...

And by "getting anything done," you of course mean, "buy lots of crap."

Anonymous said...

No, I was more talking about how people have been so sheltered during their childhoods that they will be either too afraid or too lazy to do anything groundbreaking. I have a feeling that Genghis Khan was playing with nothing but small parts in chocolate eggs, as were Scott, Amundsen and Mae West.

JC said...

See, this is why you are my best friend.