Arrrrrr!

Some of you are probably expecting me to write something about Fat Camp. Fat Camp, for anyone reading this who might not be aware, is what my friends and I have come to call our annual camping trips, where we typically exert only a minor amount of energy either on a leisurely canoe outing or a brief, non-strenuous hike, and then spend the rest of the weekend sitting around in our camp chairs and eating nearly non-stop. I don't remember exactly when we dubbed these trips "Fat Camp," but I'm pretty sure it was the day in St. Croix State Park when my good friend Dale responded to my complaints about the size and attributes of my gut ("the paunch and the roll," as I called it) by handing me a bag of snacks and saying, "Have some chips, fatty." We liked the phrase so much that we used it as the slogan on the back of the t-shirts we printed for last year's trip.

I don't really feel like writing about Fat Camp, however. I feel I write about food and laziness often enough as it is, and most of you who might read this were there with me at camp anyway. You already know what I consumed and in what quantities. You already heard me rant on and on about how the tent Jamie expected me to sleep in was made for children or Hobbits and not for full-sized humans. You already know that "shat" is one of the all-time best Boggle words (even if it is worth just a measly one point), and you very likely remember why. (I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that we're all apparently still twelve years old, and poop remains inexplicably funny to us.)

So then. Enough about Fat Camp. Instead I'll tell you a story about eBay and retro toys and pirate talk. Why? Because it made me laugh, and because talking like a pirate is fun.

My little sister is quite the eBay maven. Her addiction began years ago as a buyer, collecting quirky t-shirts, Mystery Science Theater 3000 paraphernalia, and bootleg concert CDs. Eventually, she started selling items, too (probably a lot of the stuff she originally bought on eBay, as well as many of the items the packrat in her saved since childhood or acquired during her employment at various thrift stores). She now has the number 611 noted behind her user ID, and the star beside that number is purple (as opposed to blue or yellow or red or whatever). I'm sure she even knows (without digging through the eBay help files) just what that means in terms of where it ranks her among the other power sellers on the site.

Occasionally my sister will send me a link to some odd item she's found on eBay, like a supposedly haunted pair of boxer shorts or an empty PB Maxx candy wrapper someone saved since the 80s or a pair of Hooters Girl scrunch socks... Usually I have no idea what prompted her to search for anything that would have turned such items up in her results, but I also know that it's the Internet and sometimes, even with the most normal and ordinary of intentions, there's simply no telling where you'll end up.

Lately she's been selling many of the toys from our childhood... things now considered "vintage" that other Generation X-ers long ago lost to garage sales and now, with nostalgia, are reclaiming on eBay. As she lists her own items, she's been checking out what other people have available as well, and has been sending me the ones that sparked particularly vivid memories of our own long-forgotten identical toys. Yesterday, it was the Weebles Tumblin' Fun playset, with its bright yellow plastic track that let the Weeble family wobble down from the second floor to the first, passing through a two-dimensional tree along the way and landing somewhere in the vicinity of the front door. Today, it was the Tree Tots Family Treehouse by Kenner.

I'd nearly forgotten about the Tree Tots playhouse, but as soon as I saw the picture, it instantly came back to me... The pop-up release button that never worked quite as smoothly as it was supposed to; the poorly designed staircase that was always folding in on itself; the separate, detachable dog house bush that never stayed open on its own and frequently rolled away...

Don't get me wrong... despite all these deficiencies I'm for some reason remembering, we played with that toy a lot. One thing in the eBay seller's photo didn't look familiar to us, however. My sister pointed it out before I even had a chance to notice it being out of place myself... Namely, the dad.

We sorted it all out over email...

-----------------------------------------
From: -valerie
To: Stefanie
Subject: valerie sent you this eBay item: Vintage Kenner Tree Tots Tree House Set

Here's the tree house. Note the sea captain-lookin' guy. I don't remember him at all. I think I do remember there being a father, but wasn't he dressed in a suit or something? With like black hair or dark brown hair? I can't remember for sure, but I know I don't remember the sea captain!"

-----------------------------------------
From: Stefanie
To: -valerie
Subject: Re: valerie sent you this eBay item: Vintage Kenner Tree Tots Tree House Set

Note the following, direct from the seller's description, explaining the curious sea captain guy:

"All the people here are in very good to excellent condition... There is one person (the dad) who I replaced with a boat captain dad. I couldn't find the original dad. He can easily be found on Ebay as I've seen him listed alone before."

Aw. Poor guy. Probably dropped on a bus somewhere or something and now stranded all by himself in an eBay listing, just hoping the right person will find him and return him to his family... And what about the kids? What, their dad just gets arbitrarily replaced, like a soap opera actor? Like Darren, on Bewitched? Or Becky, on Roseanne?

-----------------------------------------
From: -valerie
To: Stefanie
Subject: Re: valerie sent you this eBay item: Vintage Kenner Tree Tots Tree House Set

Ohhh, that makes so much more sense. I didn't read the description (obviously).

Anyway, that really is funny about the missing dad being replaced with a sea captain. What an odd choice. I mean... where'd the sea captain even come from? How did he transition into the family? Were the kids like, "I don't have to listen to you! You're not my real father!" And the sea captain was like, "Aaaaarrgghh."

Somewhere there's a little plastic man in a suit tied to the mast of a ship sailing in the ocean...

-----------------------------------------
From: Stefanie
To: -valerie
Subject: Re: valerie sent you this eBay item: Vintage Kenner Tree Tots Tree House Set

Heh heh. It's fun to talk like a pirate.
Arrrrrrrrrr.

-----------------------------------------
From: Stefanie
To: -valerie
Subject: Re: valerie sent you this eBay item: Vintage Kenner Tree Tots Tree House Set

Hee. Wow; look at the website you found.

"Arrr! - This one is often confused with arrrgh, which is of course the sound you make when you sit on a belaying pin. 'Arrr!' can mean, variously, 'yes, I agree,' 'I'm happy,' 'I'm enjoying this beer,' 'My team is going to win it all,' 'I saw that television show, it sucked!' and 'That was a clever remark you or I just made.' And those are just a few of the myriad possibilities of Arrr!"

Hee hee!!


-----------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------


Someday I'll tell you about the time my friend Sarah and I went to a Pittsburgh Pirates game. Let's just say the pirate talk quickly got old for Sarah's husband, but it never stopped being funny to Sarah and me. (Hey Sarah! Gimme an "R"! [R!] Gimme an "R"! [R] Gimme an "R"! [R] Gimme an "R"! [R] What's it spell? [Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!])

OK, I guess that's pretty much the story, so I suppose I don't need to tell you about it later.

Speaking of pirates, there's a new Captain Morgan out now. It's called "Tattoo," and it's in a black bottle with really sinister and bad-ass looking graphics. Its aroma is significantly better than the mysterious Captain Morgan "Silver" (which I recently decided smells like nail polish remover), but unfortunately it tastes like some kind of odd, bad candy. I can't say the Tattoo has won me over as a convert.

I'm done talking about pirates now. Really. Arrrrr.