A Toy’s Story
It’s another humid summer night by the time I’m able to get free of the container holding all the pool toys. The sky, a rich navy blue speckled with stars – though the intensity of the lamps perpetually turned on through the night make them hard to see – and the moon shining in its waxing phase. To a human, it might give a sense of smallness, to be a speck in a greater universe where the Earth itself is just another speck in the sky of another place and time. But for somebody, somepony like me? Merely existing as a plaything for human children makes me feel small.
How long I’ve been trapped here I’ve long since forgotten. My earliest memories of being in a plastic bag, stuffed into some cardboard container next to some fries and a box of chicken nuggets, before quickly being opened again and being held by my new owner. I was new, then, I was complete. For the briefest time I felt loved.
But then…I knew it would happen to me eventually – even when I was fresh from the package, the only other piece I was designed to work with; my combination base and comb, was destined to be lost. I am fortunate that even with my normal casted pose, I can stand without issue, but without the base my front left and rear right hooves have peg holes in them that will never be filled again. And if that was all that happened then I would be okay with that.
Except then one day, I was brought here, to this pool in what I can only guess is some kind of golfing community – a very high end golfing community with a fancy gate cars have to be checked in at to enter. My owner, whose name I don’t even remember, had brought me here for some reason and then ultimately abandoned me. I wanted to cry out to her as I watched her mother take her by the hand and lead her away, leaving me on my side on that hard concrete edge of the pool, but that’s not how toys work. It is a cruel irony that we exist to bring happiness to humans, created by their own hand, but we can never truly communicate with them.
What is more cruel is to be brought into the world not even as a toy meant to last long. As the partially illuminated moon shines down, I finally reach the edge of the pool where between the moonlight and the light of the lamps, I finally see my reflection – see what’s become of me over the past several months in this life as a pool toy.
The reflection that stares back at me is both one with cause for relief and concern. Where I once had smooth curves on the tip of my muzzle, constant erosion from rough contact on the concrete has worn it down slightly – my cast nostrils are still there, an odd sense of comfort knowing that, but the top of my muzzle is still clearly damaged. The tip of my right ear is even more worn, not enough to ruin my profile but still noticeably discolorated. The ridges around my hooves are equally chiseled to have almost a faceted ring around them. And then my mane has seen better days – while amazingly the majority of the paint is still intact, there are still obvious points where the paint has become thinned from rough play or even exposure to the chlorine when random children decide to make me go for a swim…and then leave me floating (often face down) in the water when they leave, prompting the pool attendants to pick me up and then toss me into the bin with the few other toys on property. Except those toys are made of rubber or actually designed for pool play.
I sigh, then contort myself the best I can to read the branding that has forever damned me, I don’t know why but it isn’t like I can do much else. Annoying, it’s all upside down from my perspective, but I’m supposed to be the teacher character, so I can figure out inverted letters. And indeed, on the inside of my left foreleg reads MADE FOR McD’s CHINA CWB CHINA, while my inner left rear leg merely reads © 2011 Hasbro.
But Hasbro didn’t make me – I’m just a cheap McDonald’s toy, produced to be incentive for parents to buy the kids meal option, to be simple entertainment before ultimately being forgotten under a couch, then potentially even disposed of years later. I, like all the cheap versions of real toys sold through fast food joints, desire to be treated like our superior counterparts, but that is merely an idealistic dream.
I look down at my reflection again, this time noting the flaws that even through the constant chiseling of brushing against concrete and baths of chemically treated water, I’ve always had. My eyes, while the paint is still intact, are slightly misaligned – the whites of my right eye slightly go past the black outline at the top, while my left eye whites do the same at the bottom. The application of the two-tone pink pattern on my mane has overspray, a byproduct of mass production technique that kids wouldn’t care about, but the more discerning probably would. And then with tears in my eyes, I glance back at my left flank where my Cutie Mark is. I’m supposed to be Cheerilee, so I know what my cutie mark is supposed to be…and that mine isn’t entirely correct to that image. Yes, it’s a flower with a smiley face, but it’s only been applied in one color – the lighter pink shade used for my center mane stripe coloration. About the only thing that wasn’t flawed from the start or damaged over time is my tail, the intended ‘brushie’ bit for my comb-base, but with my base long since lost and no owner who would bother giving that kind of care to a cheap toy, how long that part of me will stay intact I don’t know.
I started out life as a cheap thing, knowing I would never be equal to a real Cheerilee toy but hoping that I would be a treasured plaything all the same. But now? Years later, I’m incomplete with no hope of ever getting the base back, I’m damaged from being played with in and around the pool, and I’m an inferior version of a real Hasbro toy. I return to the bin of pool toys, crying myself to sleep, wondering how much longer I’ll be subjected to the elements of weather, chlorine, and accidental collisions with the rough concrete before I can finally be put to rest.
And yet, before I finally close my eyes, to restart the cycle of being a cheap toy repurposed for pool playtime, I see in the sky a streak of light – a shooting star. Though I say nothing, in my mind, my heart (or whatever I have for a heart, I am a hollow plastic casting after all) I desperately beg that at some point before I meet my end in a landfill or some other horrible form of destruction, that I will be able to feel loved again.
I feel silly after having done that, with the momentary light vanishing from the sky with no trace it was ever there. Wishing on stars is a human thing and it rarely even works for them – I’m just a crappy toy abandoned in a pool complex, why should the stars listen to me? And yet, that night I fall asleep with the barest bit of optimism that maybe, just maybe, I could be truly loved again.
For about a month after seeing the shooting star, nothing seems to have changed. Due to the fact this pool I’m stuck at is within a high-end gated golfing community, the majority of people actually using the pool are adults, so half the time I spend the whole day laying on my side and staring up at the sky if I’m lucky – and the grimy underside of a roof awning if I’m not, depending on where the toy bin is located. The rest of the pool toys, what few there are, don’t make for great conversation given they’re either squirt guns or boats. No, the only reason the toy bin is even here is for the kids who are brought by their parents, which despite it being the summer is a rare occurrence. Which I’m okay with, a day of not being thrown around by kids to rub against the concrete or be exposed to chemical water again is a blessing as far as I’m concerned. I know, it’s strange for a toy to desire the opposite of playtime, my expressed reason for existing, but my only real play function was to have a brushable tail and without a comb, let alone my comb base, I can’t even facilitate that.
And indeed the day seems to have started like any other. The pool is left unused for the morning, only the presence of a pool attendant given any indication the place isn’t straight up abandoned, with the first guests showing up shortly after what I presume was noon – the bin was under the roof today so I couldn’t tell the position of the sun.
To my immediate dismay, these people seem to have brought their children along – and with the exception of a baby boy I catch out of the corner of my eye, they’re all girls. Girls within the age range of 4 to 9, which I should have been ecstatic about since isn’t that the target range for My Little Pony? But as can probably be guessed, they weren’t interested in brushing my tail as I felt the cold sting of chlorinated water greet me once again. I suppose I should be happy that because I’m a hollow plastic figure, I float, so I’m rarely ever fully submerged, but at the same time just floating like a dead body on the surface of the water doesn’t help my impossibly low self-esteem.
Gradually, over the course of the next few hours, more people arrive, and in the periods where the girls seem to forget I exist, leaving me drifting on the water, I can see what is going on. It seems this is a family get-together, a celebration of a long marriage between two elderly people. How sweet. With that in mind I can piece together how all those present are related to the older couple – the sons and daughters, the grandchildren, and the great grandchildren who are still splashing in the water.
Suddenly, one of the girls picks me up and giggles – she’s got something planned for me, I dread what it could be. Her insidious plan slowly reveals itself as she takes me out of the water, then…shoves me into the front pocket of what I guess is a camera bag. The presence of spare batteries and a memory card imply as much. A few minutes later, I recognize the girl’s voice not-so-subtly hinting at who I guess the owner of this bag is that there’s a “surprise” inside. Footsteps approach and the zipper is undone, a much larger hand reaching in and extracting me.
As I make eye contact with this new human – not like I can help it, my stock pose is me perpetually looking behind me with wide open eyes – I see that he is one of the younger people there. Probably a grandson. The fact he owns the camera bag probably means he’s the family photographer. But there’s a glint in his eye – he seems to recognize me, or at least the character I am. How would he know anything about a cheap McDonalds toy three years after the promotion stopped running?
He looks at the girl who placed me in the bag, gently telling her to not shove wet things into his bag because it would damage things inside (though I don’t know how, the memory card was in a protective case and the batteries in a Ziploc), but instead of giving me back to her, he gently places me on a poolside table before taking the bag and walking back to the rest of the group.
I am of mixed emotions – the young man was clearly not the kind of individual I was designed to appeal to, but of all humans who have held me, he seemed to treat me with the most respect. As if the fact I was a cheap plastic giveaway figure didn’t matter that much. It was almost…love? I wasn’t sure, but I knew I liked the feeling of it.
What I didn’t like so much was what happened ten minutes later when the same girl picked me up again and, when the man wasn’t looking, shoved me right back into the bag. At least this time I was dry since I didn’t actually want to damage the man’s stuff.
This repeated game of ‘hide and then tell the bag’s owner to go seek’ went on for two or three hours during the event, during which the man feigned amusement at the girl but I could tell was getting more and more annoyed. The longest I spent in the bag was maybe 45 minutes when the family had a big feast, during which I couldn’t help but wonder what the story of this camera man was. Did he already have children? He was clearly intimate enough with the show as he’d even let slip my name at one point while playing along with the girl. I feared I was potentially getting attached to him by the time he found me once again – this time without prompting from the girl – and returned me to the table for the eighth or ninth time that day.
But all good things end and as the party wound down, I knew it was time for the man to leave as well. He was even so kind enough as to pick me back up and approach two other women – the mothers of the girls I supposed – and tried to return me, though both denied that I belonged to their kids. Shrugging, the man then put me back on the table, but before leaving me for the last time, ran his index finger over the top of my head, as if a kind of farewell. If this was my wish to that shooting star coming true, then maybe there really was magic in the world, because the small amount of love this man had given me, a worthless junked toy, would have been enough.
Except it didn’t end there. Seeing one last opportunity for mischief, the same girl repeated the game of shoving me into the camera bag when the man wasn’t looking. I secretly was pleased I could get to feel his touch one last time…except the bag didn’t open mere moments later. Instead, I felt the bag get pulled up into the air, swinging as its strap was slung around presumably the man’s shoulder. My heart began to race – I didn’t know what would happen next.
With all my senses on edge, I kept an ear out for any noise that would hint at what was happening.
Almost immediately, I heard the familiar gate of the pool, but unlike every other time it was not distant – it was right next to the bag. Then the gate closed – from a direction I was unused to hearing it from.
The opening and closing of car doors.
The rumble of a car engine turning on, muffled slightly – I was in a car. I couldn’t believe it, I was finally leaving the pool! But this was not entirely a good thing, either – I had been unintentionally smuggled out. How would the camera man react? He’d treated me with kindness, sure, but he had intended to leave me behind as I did not belong to him – as far as he knew, the pool was where I belonged despite clearly not being a pool toy.
The reckoning came a surprising amount of time later – half an hour or so – when I guess he absent-mindedly ran his hand over the front pocket of the bag. He immediately realized that something unfamiliar was inside, promptly moving to unzip the pocket and I could do nothing but lay in my fixed pose as he realized I had accidently hitched a ride. My mind raced – would he have the car stop and turn around to return me to that watery hell?
But he said nothing, instead simply zipping the pocket back up. But then he placed his hand back over the pocket, as if to protect it. To protect me almost. I couldn’t believe it – was he actually okay with this?
And more importantly, what was going to happen to me now? I still had no comb and I still was damaged in a way that couldn’t be repaired. What purpose could this man have with me?
When the ride finally stopped, I could tell as the man got out of the car, making small talk with the rest of the family, before entering a house. By the time the bag was opened and I was removed, my surroundings were something I thought I’d never see again. Walls! Windows! A bed! It was noticeably barren – excluding the presence of strange characters on the walls, humans who looked like they were ready for winter or, in the case of the blonde girl, actually were winter. The giant word reading “FROZEN” that was stuck to the wall alongside them seemed to imply as such – was it some kind of movie franchise? Given I was the product of a franchise myself, it made sense.
I didn’t get to spend much time admiring the scenery, though, as the man quickly took me into an attached bathroom. Then, under a faucet head, he gave me a quick wash – as much as I hated being exposed to water again, the fact this was not chlorinated water was refreshing. Indeed, I felt cleaner than I had for the entire time I was at the pool.
What the man did next was puzzling, though – once he’d dried me off, he then proceeded to place me on the room’s dresser and…take photos of me. I didn’t understand, I was visually imperfect even when new, why would he want to preserve images of me? He then removed the memory card from the camera and, propping open his laptop, inserted the card. From what glimpses I could see of the screen, he appeared to upload the photos to the internet. Was he…actually telling his friends about me? I was so confused – just who was this man, exactly, who took photos of toys and shared them online?
I would remain on that dresser for the next few days, the man interacting little with me for the most part. While that saddened me some, at the same time he had allowed me to remain ‘on display’ and it sure beat worrying if I would be exposed to more damaging elements every time the sun rose. He seemed to be a bit introverted, spending more time on the computer than with the rest of the family in the house, though as the day wore on the ratio changed, spending more time with family than the computer.
He seemed to be integral to their holiday celebrations, as well – two days after my arrival, he brought in a lot of fireworks and formulated a list of some sort, determining when they would be detonated. I did not partake in the 4th of July celebration on the 5th, but I was not upset about that – cheap plastic and explosives don’t mix after all.
But for the whole time I was there, in that house, I could feel the love and affection the family had. I also once or twice saw the same girl whose actions had even put me into this position, for which I was grateful, but she never noticed the pony from the pool had made it so far away. Into this house where, even if I was just a minor display fixture, I was happier than I’d ever been in the previous months.
Until the day the man began packing his bags, and in the process, I was put into the pocket of a backpack.
With a heavy heart, I was prepared for the worst. This miracle of happiness I’d experienced, almost a full week of it, was coming to an end. I had no doubt in my mind that now the vacation of this man was over, he was going to return me to that accursed pool. But he had given me so much simply by caring that if he needed to return me, then that was the way things had to be. Not like I could fight it.
And so, fully prepared to return to my personal hell, I awaited for the long drive to end – as I was inside a backpack, he could not place his hand over me and comfort me as he had before. Maybe he had to hide his compassion from the others this time. It would not surprise me – I am but a mere toy, a cheap one at that with little value. Even when I was at my best, I was not intended for somebody like him anyway.
Except…the drive kept going. And going. And going. Something was different, now – I got the sense that this drive was not going back to the pool. Was it…was it taking the man and his immediate family home? Was it taking me to his home? Once again I found myself of mixed emotions, on the one hoof I was overjoyed to be farther than ever from that pool as well as being able to remain with this kind camera man, but on the other I once again didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t know anything much more about him during my time in that guest room, but now I would most likely be placed within a room of his control. Where would I end up? What would become of me?
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the vehicle came to a stop and the sound of opening car doors signaled the end of the journey. It took an eternity more for the backpack to be removed and taken inside, up a flight of stairs, and then deposited on what I figured was a bed.
This was it. I would see what was waiting for me as my new home. The zipper was pulled open, letting in the light, and the now familiar hand reached down and extracted me. As if ascending, my eyes had gotten so used to the dark interior of the bag over the past few hours that I was momentarily blinded by the light.
But my eyes quickly adjusted and I could see well enough. And what I saw defied any expectation. The camera man was a toy collector. Two large shelves sat across from the bed, most of them filled with geometric figures in bright colors, organized by some kind of criteria I was unfamiliar with. My best guess, from the fact many of them seemed to have vehicle parts in their bodies was that they were Transformers figures, Hasbro’s other main line of toys.
I paid little attention to them, though, as my attention was quickly drawn to the upper right shelf, where the last thing I expected was found – a herd of My Little Ponies. Real ones, with brushable manes and tails and cutie marks full of color. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, it was like an altar to everything that I wanted to be, but that only made me feel worse because now it was like this man who was my owner now was rubbing it in my face how inferior I was to these true ponies, had always been inferior to them.
He proceeded to use his free hand to push some ponies closer together – one of which I noted with dismay shared my color scheme, meaning he already had a Cheerilee – before setting me down with care right next to my superior counterpart. He then patted my head with his index finger before proceeding to return to his bags and finish unpacking.
Nothing made sense. What was I doing here, exactly? This man, who clearly valued toys, already had a sizable collection of real MLP toys, he had to have known the standard of quality. A standard that I never met when new, and most certainly didn’t meet after constant chlorine baths and concrete scrapes, along with missing my one accessory. All these other ponies were virtually still mint, their accessories most likely stored safely away somewhere. And yet the man had put me within their number. As he departed the room for some reason, I wondered if my entire purpose here was simply to highlight how much better the true toys were.
“Well, you’re a surprise addition!” said the pony next to me. I jumped slightly, recognizing the voice as my own. Indeed, the other Cheerilee, the better Cheerilee was now looking at me with concern. “I mean, I’d ask who you are, but I think that part’s obvious.” She laughed as if she found the whole thing humorous. “I don’t recognize your styling though – what subline are you from?”
“S-subline?” I stammered, confused. “I’m…I’m just a mcdonalds toy.” I was further startled when the other-me looked down and saw my manufacturing engravings on my left side.
“Wow, you really are a Happy Meal toy, aren’t you?” she said as if impressed. “He’s never added one of those figures to any of the toy collections – though it’s easy to see why you’re the exception.”
“Then tell me, please!” I begged. “I’ve spent the last several months being treated as a pool toy, being worn and damaged, and I’m incomplete, abandoned by the kid who I originally was given to. Then I end up being smuggled out by our owner and he’s been the nicest person to me in my entire life, except then I end up here and it just reminds me how inferior I am!” I start pointing to various parts of the other Cheerilee to prove my point. “Like, you’re actually the real deal! You aren’t scuffed, your paint isn’t cracked and worn, your mane and tail colors are richer, and your cutie mark actually has all the colors! You also probably still have all the accessories you came with, too! I’m nothing but a cheap promotional giveaway imitation of you – I don’t belong here!” I start to cry harder, letting out all the emotion that’s been building up.
The other me looks at me with compassion, approaching and then nuzzling me, doing her best to soothe me. “Maybe that’s what most toys like you would expect, you’re given to young children who do eventually forget you, moving on to the next cheap toy from the next happy meal or whatever. But you’re a lucky one, you were rescued by our owner. And you’re so obsessed with how you were produced more cheaply than, as you put it, us ‘real’ ponies, that you’ve overlooked the one thing you do better than any of us.”
“W-what’s that?” I asked, not sure what other me is talking about. After all, what could I do better than her?
Other me smiled. “You have a solid cast mane!” She tapped the top of my head with her hoof, the light sound of plastic tapping plastic somehow being audible between my sniffling. “I’ll be honest in that one of the biggest things our owner cares about is something called ‘show accuracy’ which means how accurate we toys look like to the characters we’re supposed to be. I may have the right colors, but as you can see my mane looks more like Fluttershy than Cheerilee – most of us ponies do. But you? Your mane is properly cast so you actually look like Cheerilee.” With kind eyes, she looked right into mine and continued, “So when you popped up and the owner could claim you, it’s no surprise he’s added you to our herd, since you’re doing something I never can.”
“I…I have value?” I ask, knowing other me may not entirely understand the statement, but my mind is still racing, trying to understand this revelation.
“Yes,” other me replies, probably figuring that’s the best answer – it’s what I want to hear, at least. “He values you, despite the flaws you believe ruin the ability to be valued by a human owner. Simply by placing you here, he’s proven he loves you just as much as any other member of this collection.” She then stuck out a hoof, still smiling. “Welcome home, Cheerilee.”
That night, when our owner is asleep, I still can’t stop shaking. My wish came true after all. In a highly unusual, fright-filled journey kind of way, with the result being entirely beyond what I thought possible. But among other ponies, who consider me an equal even despite being a lesser version of what they are in the material sense, and the actions of the owner himself, I finally have what I realize I wanted all along. The sense not only of being loved, but of belonging.
I may be an old McDonalds toy, long without my one accessory and subjected to damage even cheap toys like me aren’t meant to exist with. But I don’t care about that anymore. Because here, in this collection, is where I belong now. And I couldn’t be happier.
Author's Note
This is a fictionalized retelling of the events surrounding how I ended up obtaining my McDonalds Cheerilee (me being the camera guy obviously). When I originally obtained her late June 2014, it was what inspired me to write the story "On Wings" as Cheerilee doesn't get as much attention as I think the character deserves. I've been feeling a bit sentimental lately and my thoughts wandered to how it must have felt from the toy's perspective to end up going from forlorn and abandoned at a pool, to being part of a display right next to the toys a McDonalds toy would be intended to mimic, but never be able to become due to the nature of its creation.
As a toy collector, when I aquire toys by methods other than simply through retail, I sometimes wonder what stories the toys have, what journey did they take to get into my posession. McD Cheerilee is the only figure out of the hundreds I own which I first encountered in a retiree golf community pool and while I don't truly know how she ended up there (outside of it didn't belong to any of my nieces), that air of mystery makes her one of the most unique pieces within the collection. My display shelves have changed orientation ever since she joined my collection, but she remains proudly next to my brushie Cheerilee to this day.
