"Toyland"

This song sticks in my head and I don't like it. The sticking, that is, though that probably doesn't speak well of the song, either.

One of my very favorite toys growing up was my pet Sea Monkeys. I think that I had Sea Monkeys--which are actually brine shrimp, if you're not familiar with them from your own sordid past--since I was eight or nine years old. We had dogs, and occassionally a cat, but I really wanted a rodent or reptile, which my mother refused to allow.

I did a sixth grade report on my Sea Monkeys with a friend. I remember bringing them in, but then spilling the container in my purse, tragically. (It must have been around that point that I gave up on purses, perhaps too traumatized to do anything else. Surely they all smelled of brine to me after that accident.)

Now, every so often I have another batch of Sea Monkeys; currently, of course, I'm trying to pass on the 'tradition' to my daughter. I'm amazed that these things are still around at all; the packaging and instruction booklets are freakishly similar to the ones I received as a kid. Though the 'Sea Monkeys on the Moon' tank that we saw the other day is certainly new. I'm hoping that someone gets me that one for my birthday. (Hint.)