Join Me in Snarkville

Yes, I know I’ve been MIA lately. I’d love to say it is because I’ve had SO much going on that I just couldn’t see straight, but that just wouldn’t be true. The reality is that I’ve fought a 3 day long headache, I’m not sleeping well at night, and I’ve been more than a wee bit grumpy. While my grumpy is normally great fodder for a blog post, it isn’t good fodder for my life returning to normal/sanity, thus I took a much needed little vacation and hope that I’m ready to return to my full snarky self. Ahem, moving forward.

I promised to tell you all about our little trip to Playmobil. And I keep my promises.

First, you need to know that Playmobil is the best value on the planet for indoor fun for kids. All three of paid a $1 each to go into the WORLD OF PLAYMOBIL. And that world is a huge room FULL of multiples of every Playmobil item ever made. EVER. There were no fewer than 10 fire rescue boats and a battery operated crane that we carried ALL over the place – it was Duke’s favorite.

So, we get past the gates to Playmobil heaven and Duke isn’t sure. I don’t know what he thought, but we walked him all over the room and he told us that he didn’t want to play with anything. Then Prince (the big kid) sat down and played with the crane. Duke was in love and we spent loads of time in the “construction” area of the room. I was sitting and taking photos, when I got this little idea…

I was inspired by this little goodie. It reminded me of the stories I’ve heard of people being packed into containers in order to be smuggled into the US. (This is where Prince started to think I’d lost my mind.) So, I began to create a little photo story.

First, we have off-loaded several containers and stacked them up for shipping around the country.

As you can see this is a bustling shipyard, with forklifts waiting to move important cargo around.

(Can you see the foreperson in the background? Details, it is all in the details, folks)

Then, it happened. There was a sound from a container. I don’t know what kind of sound, but it caught the attention of dock workers. Perhaps they should open this container up and check inside? (I took a photo of that, but it was WAY blurry)

The dock workers, not being men who can be bought with bribes, called the police. (It was at this point in the story that Prince caught on to my little fun. He actually crossed this huge room of toys to help me gather the needed police in this scene – we thank him for his production help.)

Please notice that the container people look a lot like dock workers (it was part of the clever ploy to get them out and mingling with the workers and had nothing whatsoever to do with the fact they were the people I could find at the time. Also of note, you can get 6 playmobil people into a playmobil container – not comfortably.)

Finally, the police found the gang that had sponsored this border crossing and were sending them away to prison for their mis-deeds.

Ok. So there ends the first story of the “Tell it with Playmobil” series. Next up, we staged “industrial accidents” because that was lots of fun. By the end of the day, we were hosting gladiators in the Colosseum. Um, blame Prince – I merely got him started by planning the container migration plan.

Oh, Duke? You want to know what Duke did during all of this? He made a Playmobil horse VERY ill by putting him in a container and raising and lowering him with the above mentioned crane — FOR HOURS.

All of this and it cost us only $3 – as long as you don’t factor in that all roads out lead through the Playmobil store, where we (and by this we, I mean Prince and me) couldn’t resist buying this. I was forced to leave without these items that I now seriously regret.