The. Worst. Toy. Ever.

My husband’s brother gave our middle son a really cool toy for Christmas. It is a robot bank which electronically keeps track of the coins Tic-Tac puts in it. (I’m going back to using the kids’ nicknames on the blog, by the way. Using initials just feels weird and too much like Men in Black.) This robot bank also has a motion sensor so whenever someone comes near it, it will wave its arms, talk and blink its very bright blue light eye. Cute toy.

Until you come to realize that there seems to be no way to turn it off. This thing is the creepiest toy anyone has ever given one of our kids. After being creeped out one too many times by this little robot waving at us and talking, loudly, at us every time we walked into Tic-Tac’s room, we finally figured out how to turn the sound off at least. The arms still wave at us with a not so quiet, “Rrrrr, rrrr,” sound and the bright Cyclops light still blinks at us, but at least we can keep it from yelling at us now. We have tried and tried to figure out how to turn it off so we can at least have it silent at night and he can still play with it during the day, but, since I also have no idea what Tic-Tac has done with the instructions, up to now we have been convinced there is no on/off switch. That is just a stupid design for a kids’ toy, in my humble opinion.

This has been a nightly scenario for the past few weeks when we have gone into Tic-Tac’s room to tuck him in and say good night:

Drew and I walk into his room. Robot starts moving his arms and blinking bright blue at us.

“I hate that thing.” I say. “It is just creepy.”

Drew laughs and has started calling it “The Curse of Uncle Matt.”

Tic-Tac just grins.

This has been our tolerable co-existence with “The Curse” since Christmas. Until last night.

First of all, I must explain that my husband was away, and I really do not sleep well when he is not home. I had stayed up past 11PM finishing the novel I was reading and was very tired. I had just achieved that stage of sleep where I was not really awake but had not actually achieved the bliss of complete sleep when all of a sudden a very loud beeping jolted me back to consciousness. I sat there dazed, heart pounding, for a second wondering what in the world the insistent racket could be while all the possibilities flashed through my mind. Doesn’t sound like the smoke detector, it’s not the stove or anything in the kitchen, not the doorbell, not the phone, what in the world is it?????

I jumped out of bed and started across the house, realizing that the noise was getting louder as I crossed through the living room and kitchen and neared the hallway where Tic-Tac’s and Boo’s rooms are. As I neared Tic-Tac’s room I suddenly remembered that Monk had mentioned that when the evil robot thing had been in his room before we got Tic-Tac’s shelf put up in his new room, it had suddenly woken him up in the night making a frightening racket. I had forgotten all about that because it had just not computed with me at the time he had mentioned it. Entering Tic-Tac’s room, I saw on the bottom shelf his robot shrieking and waving and blinking, and I ran over to it and starting frantically punching all the buttons on its front until it finally stopped. Meanwhile, I was hoping without much hope that Tic-Tac and Boo would not wake up. Boo is the lightest sleeper I have ever known – a squeaking door three houses away could wake her up, but, thankfully, as I stood in the darkened bedroom next to hers I could hear her snoring away (she has a cold). Tic-Tac also was still sleeping peacefully. How, I do not know – that thing was LOUD and OBNOXIOUS.

Anyway, I took the evil robot to my room and began examining it, trying once again to find a way to turn it off. Apparently this thing also has an alarm, and the default time is 12AM if you are foolish enough to set it to “Alarm ON” but not set the time. I think Boo must have messed around with the buttons yesterday and accidentally programmed it to go off. I am fairly smart, even went to college, but I cannot figure this thing out. There is no way to turn it off. I turned it over and realized the battery cover is screwed on with the tiniest little screw you’ve ever seen. I tried laying the thing face down on my dresser, but this only resulted in putting pressure on one of the buttons, causing it to yell at me that I did not have a target amount, would I like to program one now? Did I mention there is also no volume control? There are two volumes: Yelling and “Sound Off.” I finally figured out how to engage “Sound Off” so at least it would quit yelling at me, but the blue Cyclops eye kept blinking and the arms kept waving so clearly putting it face down wasn’t going to work. Then I tried turning it toward the wall so I at least would not have to see the blinding blue light, but, apparently the wall was so close that it felt its personal space was threatened and must keep blinking and waving continuously.

Finally, I went in search of a Phillips screwdriver small enough to open the battery case. After some unsuccessful forays into the junk drawer in the kitchen, more unsuccessful attempts to dislodge the cover with a safety pin, a pencil and a pen, I finally found a screwdriver and got the battery case open and performed a radical batteryectomy. This is the only way I know of to turn the crazy thing off. And, yes, I was a little worried that it might still wave and blink at me once I gutted it of its life force, but it stayed silent, thankfully.

Moral of the story: I you have little people in your life and you see this robot bank monster and have the temptation to buy it for said little people, DON’T. Unless you hate their parents. Or maybe this is Uncle Matt’s way of getting back at Drew for some long ago childhood slight. I don’t know. All I know is that thing is sitting on my dresser mocking me.