Toys

It all started when my wife went away with our child to a wedding. This was quite unusual, as our daughter was still a baby, and going to such events with her was no fun.

I was fine with that. I think young fathers will understand. I was given the gift of a break from the brat's presence, at least for a while. Naturally, sleep was the only option.

So, I was very annoyed when, in my sleep, I heard the noise of a Chinese toy with a battery inside. The sound is 1.5 bits, unpleasant, the kind only children like. This product is triggered by pressing or tilting.

Drowsy, I didn't immediately realize that there was no one to trigger the sound. At first, I tried simply waiting for the recording to run out (the ROM is cheap, a couple of kilobytes).

But the sound didn't stop on its own. Then I got up, rather roughly ripped the batteries out of the furry creature, and fell back into a heavy nap.

However, about ten minutes later, the sound was heard again, this time double—one from the nursery, one from our room. Insanely angry, I immediately got up and began ripping apart the battery-powered toys—the plastic doll and the teddy bear.

Before I could even reach the bed, practically every toy with that nasty stuffing started screaming. I started ripping the batteries and the blocks out of everything I could get my hands on until silence returned. Only then did it dawn on me that this wasn't normal—toys that went off on their own.

I left the house and sat down on the porch—I was afraid to go back in. So I waited for my family to return to the porch.

I was... sluggish—anyone who sleeps long after lunch knows that. So, I didn't immediately notice how frightened my wife was.

 My husband sat on the porch, his hair disheveled, staring into space, while toys, missing heads, arms, and bellies, gutted and crushed, were scattered all over the floor.

This story didn't end well; the toys were thrown out. We didn't live in that house for long; we moved out because we bought our own house with a yard.