Return Of The Bag Lady

The good times never end when it comes to gift giving.

My Mom is notorious for her gift giving via "grab bag" She wraps these gifts in newspaper of course, throws it all in a reused shopping bag from one of her recent department store ventures, and lets the kids go crazy.

(By the way, my mom does not recycle. She does not use newspaper and old shopping bags because she is earth friendly. But she does save trees by spending less dollars.)

My Mom has been doing this so often, that the Grand kids have been coining her "The Bag Lady".

First you need to know about my Mom's cedar closet. She has a lovely walk in closet in her basement, made of cedar, where she stores clothing among other things. And by other things, I mean a collection of gifts - games, toys, chachkes... anything she was able to purchase at a bargain price to store away in aforementioned closet for any upcoming, gift giving event.

Recently, due to the construction in her house, this closet has been unloaded and reloaded, bringing many forgotten toys to my Mother's attention. And by forgotten, I mean, call e-bay, we either have collectibles or the 70's and 80's just threw up some toys.

Well last night's Chanukah party at Savta's (Grandma) house, was the perfect opportunity for my mom to glorify newspaper and unload some junk lovely collectibles from the cedar closet.

One of the kids pulled out a small package containing two baby bottles. You know those bottles that look like they contain milk and juice in it. And when you turn them upside down to simulate feeding a baby, the juice and milk disappear to simulate being sucked up by baby. Only these two bottles seemed a bit dried out, leaving behind some disturbing looking orange and white residue. But bottles they are, nonetheless.

Some other items that seemed harmless -

- A paddle ball that will either strangle Ate or severely whack him in the eye at some point.

- Some clay that may or may not be dried out and may or may not be toxic. It's a wait and see on that, I guess.

- Some erasers in the shape of fruit, encased in packaging that claims, "It can fit on top of pencil". Only there is no hole in the eraser for said pencil to fit into. I guess you need to poke one yourself.

And my favorite...

- The broken robot.

That would be funny enough, but then I noticed more when I began to study the packaging.





The first thing I noticed, in the upper left corner, "Filled with Chicklets gum". Do they even sell chicklets gum anymore. And where is this gum. I don't see any gum, do you? And why would my Mom by a robot with chicklets gum. I don't think chicklets fall into the category of "kosher".


And then I saw some other oddities -


The whole left side of the back of the packaging is covered with scotch tape. And furthermore, hard to see in the picture, but I assure you, it's there is the date of packaging - 1981.

1981???

Seriously? I was six when my mom purchased this chicklet filled robot, the same age that So is now. And my older brother, D. he was 10 in 1981.

So my theory - D. stole the chicklets and tried to cover his tracks by taping the packaging back up. Well his cover is blown now........... 27 friggin' years later. All that's left is an empty, one armed, head fell off two times, robot.......thing. The thing is so beaten up and used, probably couldn't even sell it on e-bay.

My Mom may as well be "The Bag Lady" , because real newspaper wearing "bag ladies" are pretty much carrying around the same crap in their reused shopping bags.

Still, I never want this Mamma loving, tradition to end.