Jolly Toy
One Christmas webought our one-year old son, Sean, a little push riding toy fortoddlers. We selected a Coleco 'Jolly-Go-Round,' which hadplastic tires and a steering wheel and a child could either pushit or ride on it. It also had a big yellow button that whenpressed would activate a very lively but extremely loud tune. Thebutton also activated a miniature toy carrousel that whirledaround on the front of the vehicle while the music played. Boththe music and the carrousel were battery-operated. It was areally clever little rider and my son loved it.
The tune it played was one very familiar to me but I neverlearned the title of it. It was, however, one of those veryrousing boisterous tunes, along the same vein of; 'Hail, Hail theGang's all here,' or 'Ta-rah-rah-BOOM-de-ay.' At least it alwaysgives me the impression of pie-eyed party-ers, raising foamingsteins in beer halls
Sean roared around all day on the Jolly with that song blastingall over the house. It nearly drove me out of my skull. I wouldlay in bed at night trying to get that damned tune out of my head.So when the music/carrousel part of the toy broke down a year orso later, I was inwardly thankful. However my son managed to talkhis father into fixing it. For a while the music and carrouselworked but it continually kept breaking and eventually my husbandtold Sean he couldn't fix it anymore. That didn't stop my sonfrom scooting around on the Jolly and pushing that button tilkingdom come, but the song never played for him again. Manymonths later, I was staying up very late trying to finishing asewing project. It was about three in the morning and dead quietin the house. Sean had been chased off to bed many hours earlierbut before he left, he abandoned the Jolly just a few feet awayfrom me. Now the only sounds to be heard was the ticking of theclock in another room and the hum of the refrigerator in thekitchen. At this point my eyelids were drooping and I castigatedmyself for not going to bed. Without any warning at all, theJolly-Go-Round music suddenly just <<>> on,completely shattering the dead of night and my nerves tosmithereens. My head nearly went through the ceiling. For a fewminutes I stared in disbelief, wondering how in the world itkicked on without anyone near it. Shaking my head, I leaned overto shut it off but the button would not depress. It seemed stuck.Repeatedly pushing the button did nothing. Cringing at thedeafening music, I watched helplessly as the carrousel whiz incircles, wondering if I would need a hammer to put it out of itsmisery. But when the song ended, the carrousel whirled to a stopand all was quiet in the house again. Well, ........all exceptfor the sound of my knees knocking. Without thinking twice Iimmediately switched off the lights and went to bed. The next dayI found the whole thing rather funny and figured that there was'without a doubt' a explanation for the toy's wires to reactivatesomehow. (I do still think this.) In any case, I didn't want theJolly going off at just any odd time of the day so I got ascrewdriver and detached the door to the battery chamber to popout the batteries. To my surprise it was empty. I asked myhusband if he removed them and he said he had taken the batteriesout some months earlier because they didn't need to wasted on abroken toy. The Jolly has never made another sound that I know ofbut if it ever did, few would have heard it because the ridingtoy never spent another night in the house again. I banished itto he backyard where the elements have pretty much destroyed thething.