It took about two hours this morning for something to become clear to me: either I am going to throw away all the Polly Pocket shoes, or I am going to go insane.

You see, I did a foolish thing this Christmas: I bought the girls a couple of Polly Pocket dolls, and I told others that they enjoyed Polly Pockets as well, resulting in a gift of a lavish, purple Polly Pocket Jumbo Jet. This jet is filled with tiny airplane seats and tiny furniture and even tinier trays of food and drink, and tiny stylish clothes for Polly to wear, and truly infinitesimal shoes. The girls adore it and they have been playing with it all day long.

Now, you mothers who are experienced in the ways of Polly are probably already nodding in recognition of the tininess of the Polly Pocket accessories and the insanity they cause, knowing that only a fool would request Polly Pocket toys for Christmas.




I had good reason for doing this, though. You see, a neighbor girl gave my daughters a bunch of beautiful Polly Pocket houses a few months ago, and the girls play with these all the time. I thought they might like an addition to their collection. The thing is, though, that these were used Polly Pocket toys. All the small parts had been lost long before we ever received them. It was just the houses, some not-too-tiny furniture, and two or three dolls, with no extra outfits, and NO SHOES whatsoever.

Today, after I spent half an hour putting Polly's fancy jet together, I opened the package of accessories and carefully placed them on the table for the girls to play with. It took about two minutes for them to be all over the floor: colorful plastic landmines, lying in wait to cause extreme pain to the unsuspecting, unprotected foot that might try to walk across the living room. Everywhere I look, there's something else: a pea-size drinking cup. A dime-size dinner plate. A shoe smaller than a Tic-Tac. I keep thinking that we've got it all picked up, and then something else appears to drive me mad.

Not only are they annoying because they're just all over the place, but have you ever tried putting these things on? The clothes are ridiculous. I know my parents used to complain about the Barbie clothes my sister and I had, but Barbie's got nothing on Polly Pocket. Barbie's clothes were at least made of cloth. Polly's wardrobe consists of two-piece outfits made of molded plastic. The two pieces are front and back, and they are supposed to somehow connect in the shoulder area, snapping together into a seamless plastic outfit for Polly, like tiny trendy armor.

Maybe I'm just toy-clothing-deficient, but I cannot make those stupid outfits snap together and stay on. Polly is going around with her clothes falling off all the time, and so now Beth has mostly resigned herself to playing with the dolls in the little painted-on bathing-suit-type outfits that they are wearing underneath their pathetic doesn't-fit-together clothing.

Well, I've had enough of it. Call me heartless if you will, but every time I find a tiny shoe on the floor, it's going in the trash. Before too long, this new Polly Pocket play set will be reduced to the same nice, hand-me-down state that our original Polly houses are in. Cute setting. A few dolls. Furniture to play with. Still plenty of fun for the kids. But NO tiny little pieces.

Because Polly Pocket shoes are of the devil, and either they go, or I do.