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Our theme is toys: the stuff of dreams, of traditions, of big business. A phenomenon our experts see as an elaborate apology syndrome: a legacy from a guilt-ridden parent to a love-starved child, a haven for the emotionally bruised, a refuge for the sensually deprived, a mock-up of Man’s world, a makeshift universe, a cherished illusion, a pacifier.

Over the past 20 years, the demand for toys has escalated to epidemic proportions. So has the cost. It’s easy to why. In order to pay bills and support their families, most breadwinners now spend more time at their jobs than they do at home. Hence, the need to leave something in their stead to placate their youngsters—to “apologize” for the empty existence their absence has forced upon them. As a result, zealous bread-winners, in their desperate attempts to make amends, have plunged themselves even deeper into debt. This, according to our experts, is how the syndrome refuels itself. They predict that by 2015 the average middle-class American parent will lavish more money on his children at Christmas than the Metropolitan Opera now spends on Aida. They do not expect that children will be proportionately happier, only that moms and dads will be laboring more feverishly to maintain, or surpass, the level of make-believe to which their young ones are accustomed.

We see this insane proliferation of playthings in the marketplace and in the home. We see human creation groaning and travailing in quest of that mythical plateau of contentment and economic stability which, insiders happily assure us, will never be attained. How is all this crap to be paid for in a normal lifetime?

That is what INTERNATIONAL PLAYDAD (I.P.) is all about.

PLAYDAD is a cutting edge amusement and credit syndicate that operates on what its founders call the "Give-As-You-Live” principle. It is the brainchild of our economic visionaries who believe that traditional monetary systems have outlived their usefulness. Measuring the cost of today’s high-tech toys in dollars and cents, they contend, is as meaningless as counting the number of feet from here to the Moon. Which is why PLAYDAD’s items aren’t priced. Instead, their virtual value is is expressed in years. That is, years of bondage a parent will spend working off his obligation, based on his financial means. No money changes hands, only data. And time.

The funs begins at TOY POLLOI, the mecca of dreams-made-flesh-made-sweat, where business is initiated and executed. As we speak, I. P. is busy selling franchises and negotiating new sites where future retail outlets will be built. Expect to see more TOY POLLOIS popping up malls and major cities everywhere, here at home...and eventually overseas.

Here’s how the system works. Computed into every transaction is the customer’s rate of earnings, estimated overtime, payroll withholdings, current obligations, etc. Money (i.e. data) not budgeted for mortgage, groceries, doctors, gas and other such incidentals, is converted into time and applied toward the financing of Junior’s gaming gizmo, electric guitar or idiot box. Length of service, of course, would vary drastically from one applicant to another. For example, a live-in doll house might set a school teacher back two years; a sanitation worker, only a few months.

Once a new customer’s vital information has been entered into the I.P. SYSTEM, he is issued a twelve-digit finance code. This code, like his Social Security number, will belong to him all the days of his life. In order to receive a printed estimate of the toys on his shopping list, the customer need only copy the item numbers, plus his personal finance code, onto an official “Request Form” and turn this form in to the customer service desk at the front of the store. The service clerk punches the data into the SYSTEM, and, in just seconds, a personalized price list is created.

A typical printout for an average middle-class father of three, who is already saddled with mortgage and car payments, tuition costs, medical bills and other expenses, might look something like this:

YOUR PERSONALIZED ESTIMATE SHEET
Customer Name: Samson L. Fritch
Finance Code: 12-8592-130-909

Thank you for shopping TOY POLLOI
Have a nice day!

After prayerful perusal, the parent then selects those items on his list which he feels he can afford. He writes the item numbers on an “Order Form” and hands it to the service clerk, who enters the SKU numbers, along with the parent’s finance code, into the SYSTEM. While his data is being processed, the parent is led to a back room where he is photographed holding his finance number across his chest. This picture is also fed into the SYSTEM. Instead of a conventional invoice, TOY POLLOI issues the customer an official CERTIFICATE OF YEARS containing an itemized printout of purchases, total term of indentured service, and the parent’s picture (with numbers). The parent adds his signature and thumb print to this document and re-submits it for final approval. The store and the parent each keep a copy of the document. Additional copies are filed with the parent’s employer(s), the state police and the F.B.I.

Before the parent is allowed to leave the store with his purchases, he is lead to yet another room where a tiny electronic tracer is surgically implanted under his skin. This device transmits specially coded signals, via satellite, to a vast network of tracing terminals throughout the United States, Canada and Mexico, so that PLAYDAD’S computer SYSTEM can monitor the parent’s activities and general whereabouts. No transaction is complete until this tracer is installed. As soon as the incision has been stitched and dressed, the parent is free to leave. From here on, he is under constant surveillance.

While the SYSTEM’s tracking capabilities have yet to be perfected, there is still relatively little pertinent information that its sensors and reasoning circuits cannot deduce. The SYSTEM will know, for instance, if an individual is at home or on the job, or if he has switched jobs. A series of positive signals are transmitted whenever he is hard at work. Overtime produces a sensuous electronic hum in the SYSTEM’s monitors. Erratic behavior/performance on the job (laziness, excessive lateness, goofing off) grieves the SYSTEM and invites serious disciplinary action. Most of the newer implants are designed to dispense painful electric charges to an errant parent who needs to be kept in line. Sickness, personal injury or any other unscheduled absence from the job will also interrupt the flow of positive signals and place the SYSTEM on “stand-by.” If normal feedback is not restored within 24 hours, and/or if no word is received from the parent, a “red alert” is triggered, and a team of investigators is dispatched posthaste. The same holds true for layoffs, unapproved resignations, or any changes in the work routine wherein the parent fails to reach the SYSTEM’s hot line:

1-800-I-AM-DOWN

Sabbaticals and mental breakdowns are absolutely frowned upon. Some earn penalties of up to two years’ indentured service. Faithful and slavish persistence, on the other hand, is not only encouraged but rewarded. Working holidays and weekends, or taking an additional job, can earn a parent credits, or CERTIFICATES OF GRACE, which can be applied to his current debt, or to future purchases. Some stores grant their customers credits of up to six months just for working Christmas Day!

In addition to its retail outlets, PLAYDAD owns its own plants and distribution centers in key locations throughout the US. Customers with outstanding balances can elect to shorten their indentured service simply by pledging to work their weekends, holidays and/or vacations at a retail or industrial site in their area. Here too, the CERTIFICATES OF GRACE they earn there can also be applied to future purchases if the parent so chooses. Participation in the program is voluntary... except, of course, when a parent loses his job, as so many recently have. A“No-Bankruptcy” clause in his contract states that economic hardship will in no way release him from his obligation to TOY POLLOI. According to the contract (which few customers bother to read), any parent who defaults on his service commitment, regardless of the reason, is automatically drafted into full time service wherever the I.P. syndicate feels he’s most needed. So you see, even in this faltering economy, PLAYDAD has devised a major job incentive strategy designed to put Americans back to work, and keep them there...forever!

“‘Workaholia’ is its own best watchdog,” says I.P. chief security analyst, Nelson J. Kazootie. “A person whose imagination has been blunted by drudgery and family pressures is less likely to think his way out of a commitment than one who has been enlightened by alternatives.”

Even so, there have been a number of occasions when parents have attempted to beat the SYSTEM. No one, thus far, has succeeded. For one thing, it is a federal offense for any doctor or lay person to remove the surgically implanted tracer. However, it is sometimes possible to confuse the SYSTEM’s device by starving oneself. There are underground surgeons who will remove the implant for a price---cash only. But starving oneself is cheaper and far less dangerous. Besides, the SYSTEM can sense when the device has been starved or tampered with, and in the time it takes a parent to ditch his job and flee town, PLAYDAD will have already dispatched its own security task force. If a fugitive parent has not been apprehended in two days, state and local authorities are brought into the investigation. After a week, the parent is the target of a nationwide manhunt. His picture and finance number will begin appearing on the evening news, on milk cartons, on tree trunks, and in post office lobbies. Airline terminals will step up their security. Canadian and Mexican boarder patrols will be put on emergency alert. Bus and train stations, motels, rent-a-car agencies, bars and brothels will all be sent fliers displaying the parent’s picture and finance number. Any citizen who may have seen himwill be urged to contact the I.P. security hot line:

1-800-RUN-AWAY

After two months, the fugitive’s family is taken into custody and held at gunpoint. PLAYDAD then issues a coast-to-coast bulletin over radio and television, informing the wayward parent that this most drastic action has been taken. This almost always brings the culprit to the bargaining table within 48 hours.

Once the parent has been apprehended, or has turned himself in, he must sign an ADMISSION OF GUILT before his family can be released and his children allowed to return to their playthings. He is then slapped with an upgraded CERTIFICATE OF YEARS which includes the unpaid balance on the toys, late fees, corporate damages, accrued interest on the late fees, interest on the damages, interest on the interest---plus the cost of the investigation, legal fees, state and local fines, federal “involvement” taxes, and other applicable penalties. His trial, should he decide to plead his case before a judge and jury, is but a formality since his guilt is already a matter of public record. But the SYSTEM thrives on such formalities in that the lawyers, the court clerks, the bailiffs, the jurors, even the judge, are all working to pay off their debts to TOY POLLOI . So are the police. So are the members of the security task force. So are the legislators who voted in the I.P. SYSTEM in the first place.

All men, high and humble, are bound up in the SYSTEM. The SYSTEM cannot fail.

The parent is then carted off to one of PLAYDAD’s maximum security labor camps where he is kept in custody until his account is purged and his transgressions atoned for. There are no rebates or reprieves to be earned here. Only one concession may be granted, though. If the parent will agree to let TOY POLLOI confiscate any merchandise that has not been damaged (spitefully or by accident), then PLAYDAD will allow him to spend one weekend, every other month, at home with his family. This is not as gracious as it sounds. For these visits, brief and infrequent though they may be, force the parent to endure his children’s wrath and disappointment. No parent that we know of has ever been that desperate for a vacation. All have preferred the peace and safety of the labor camp. The SYSTEM never fails...

...Which finally brings us back to our original theme: toys. For it is here, in these labor camps, that some of our most ingenious new toys are being produced. As more and more parents take up full time residence at their jobs or labor camps, these special toys will be turning up in greater abundance. They’re PLAYDAD’s solution to the missing parent. The ultimate apology! The prize winning series is called, appropriately enough, “Playdad.” This is what it consists of:

A remarkable two-foot tall dummy, fashioned into the likeness of the child’s father—a play-dad! The toy can be made to act out all the things the child’s real dad used to do when he lived there. It also contains a computer chip onto which his dad’s voice, or a reasonable facsimile, has been recorded. Depending on what the child desires, the play-dad can be tender or authoritative, angry or forgiving. It’s tough and durable and can be kicked around, punished and abused without caving in like the frail dummy who once ran the house. The play-dad can even be made to go to work. Replicas of the father’s workplace are also in development.

The play-dad comes with age lines that deepen, hair that turns gray and falls out, shoulders that hunch, and a back that can be thrown out of joint. And for the precocious child who enjoys poetic realism, there’s an advanced model of the play-dad that comes with a fractured chest cavity, symbolizing a failed or a broken heart. The play-dad can be made to lie down and rest, or die, which the kid’s real father only wishes he could do. Just out is an advanced version of the play-dad that eats, sweats, goes to the bathroom and breaks promises. The possibilities are endless.

Responding to a growing demand for toys that represent the woman’s place in the home, PLAYDAD now offers a play-mom character which does, or attempts to do, all the lucrative and fulfilling things that the play-dad currently does. For the older children, the two dummies come packaged together as “Play-Folks”, replete with special features that need no explaining.

The price? A life term in PLAYDAD’s labor camp.

The Age of the Replica is at hand. Our experts challenge us to imagine a one-world TOY POLLOI in which every employable adult has been pressed into full time, in-residence labor, while the conflicts of the world are acted out at home on a miniature play-globe—by children!

PLAYDAD is toys.
PLAYDAD is jobs.
PLAYDAD is justice!
The future...is PLAYDAD.

“Apologies open doors. Be sorry today."
---INTERNATIONAL PLAYDAD

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