My father has never been great at choosing gifts. No hard feelings; it's just not his thing. Nowadays he sends cash; that's always good. But when Tori was little, he tried. And usually failed. When the kids were about, oh, seven or eight, the Fail Gift was a Christmas gift. Matching toys, so everyone's equal. Tori's was a fairy and EJ's was a dragon. The figures sat on a base with a pull-cord. You pull the cord out, and the figures whirl around really fast and rise up into the air. Pretty, right? So they both opened their gifts, pointed them both directly at each others' faces, and pulled the cords. And that was the one use they got of those toys.When Tori was much more tiny, the Fail Gift was a walker. It was one of those thin plastic ones you see people selling on the side of the road. Pink plastic. In the right corner, just under her elbow, was a small silver button. Now, when she accidentally hit the button, it played the Disney song 'It's a Small World'. One of the most annoyingly cute songs ever. At first, it was merely annoying, because she only ever hit it by accident. And then one day she learned how to hit it on purpose. The walker became much more annoying that day, as she would hit it about once every twenty minutes or so.
And then she learned to lean on the button with her elbow. The good news: it stopped playing the song over and over. The bad news: it started playing just the first four notes. "It's a Small World... It's a Small World... It's a Small World... It's a Small World... It's a Small World... It's a Small World..." So the next day, Mom comes home from somewhere, and Tori's down for a nap, and I'm sitting in the living room floor with the walker, a screwdriver, and a hammer. She opens the door and asks me, "What are you doing?" I quickly slam the hammer into the screwdriver, sending pieces of the music button crunching into the carpet. "It broke," I answered.
