Most Hated Toy in Burtonia: Gone!

At the height of the Chinese Great Leap Forward, even small towns and villages had steel quotas. Since it was impossible for them to comply with the insane demands of the communist planners, the hapless peasants would melt down their agriculture implements and submit the resulting "product." Another example of how socialism is most adept at subtracting value from industrial inputs.

Until yesterday, we had just such an endeavour in our home, thanks to the Crayola Crayon Maker. It made crayons in the same way the Chinese peasants made steel in the 1950's. You take a perfectly good existing crayons, heat them to about 200 degrees, and pour the burning hot liquid into a mold. The end result is crayon slag that comes in colors like "dark mucous" or "abyssal mud." Below is a picture of a couple of these excreta.




The whole idea is so preposterous that one might expect to find it on the store shelf next to the Lil' Woodsman Junior Chainsaw or Baby's First Soldering Iron. For me it sums up everything wrong with America: cheap plastic landfill fodder, pointless and wasteful "activities," and indulgence of children. But since my boys absolutely love everything that has to do with wanton destruction, it was one of their favorite toys. So how did this state of affairs come about?



Mom was up late scraping crayon wax off the floor. Now to figure out what is the second-most hated toy in Burtonia.