Salon Drama Queen for a Day | Where are the farting toys of yesteryear?

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Last contest:

Winner
+ Nicole West
+ Acceptance speech

Runners Up
+ Nancy Kho
+ Mary Ellen Maher-Harkins

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A L S O++T O D A Y

Second Thoughts: Twinns
By Sallie Tisdale
Double your pleasure, double your funn: Create a fantasy version of your child that will stay cute and small long after your kid leaves home and dumps you

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T A B L E++T A L K
How much TV is too much? Discuss kids and the boob tube in the Mothers area of Table Talk
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BROWSE THE DRAMA QUEEN ARCHIVE
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Mamafesto
By Camille Peri
Why it's time
for Mothers Who Think

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S A L O N
E M P O R I U M
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Illustration by Katherine Streeter

D R A M A_Q U E E N_ +
Where are the farting toys of yesteryear?
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Send us your worst toy stories! Be publicly humiliated for bad consumer judgment, win valuable prizes!

"I'm so glad I'm a girl!" we remember thinking way back in the innocent days of dressing cats up in doll clothes. "I'm so glad I'm female!" we think every time we buy a particularly flattering shade of lipstick. But being a woman means you're flung out of the frying pan and straight into the fire, doesn't it? Females may get to wear velvet with impunity, but they also seem to be the only ones genetically programmed to understand that you can't simply dump Cheerios down a disposal-less sink. And now, just as you're getting over the clammy palms and teeth grinding of recalling your worst gynecological nightmares and reading about everyone else's, we at Mothers Who Think hurtle you forward into one of the experiences peculiar to reproduction -- living with your children's ghastly playthings.

We want to know: What's the worst toy your household has endured?

Was it the Bop It, a plastic gavel-like item that produces idiotic electronic sounds over and over and over again when bounced off the head of an unsuspecting sibling? Or the huge, green-and-yellow-and-orange toy kitchen your in-laws bestowed last Christmas and that now dominates your otherwise tasteful living room? Or the pirate treasure ship with the gold coins so tiny they were nearly undetectable to the human eye but nonetheless trauma-inducing when they got vacuumed up? Maybe it was the Windbreaker, a small plastic cup of neon-colored goo that makes satisfying fart noises and comes with the irresistible cautionary note, "Do not take to church! ... Keep away from family gatherings!" Whatever your choice for the most disgusting, hideous or infuriating toy, we want to know! And we want to know before we accidentally buy it ourselves.

Send in the story of your child's worst toy to dramaqueen@salonmagazine.com by Dec. 16 -- and meanwhile, find out which of our Drama Queen candidates has been crowned the martyred Queen of gynecological misery.
SALON | Dec. 3, 1998

Drama Queen for a Day + Nicole West + Nancy Kho + Mary Ellen Maher-Harkins