Thomas is a master at losing things. It has less to do with him personally and more to do with the stage of life in which he finds himself. It’s innate for toddlers to lose things. Not only that, but they always pick your most expensive possessions to lose. This is why Thomas is no longer allowed to play with CDs.
I think toddlers know of some secret black hole into which they throw all our stuff. I imagine it’s something like “Being John Malkovich” but instead of yourself crawling into a secret corridor you throw your folk’s valuables in there. They then end up not in John M.‘s head, but in Bill Gates’ pocket. I know this because he’s who I buy the replacement “stuff” from; remember, toddlers naturally gravitate toward the valuables and these are usually electronics.
It’s with this tendancy for toddlers to lose things that I present example “A” of manufacturing stupidity.
What this product proves is that at some point someone had the thought, “let’s take a relatively simple, tight concept and split it up into 26 smaller pieces…and then give them to a toddler.” Indeed, why make one book with all the letters in it when you could make 26 miniscule books each with only one letter in it? This person was obviously without children…no, this person obviously had never seen a child…ever. Anyone with even a cursory understanding of toddler behavior would know that if you’re going to give toddlers small stuff, they will instinctively lose it.
There are some small things that do well being presented to toddlers in massive quantities. For example: Legos, farm sets, Lincoln logs, tiddly winks. But note that none of these things are a set. If you lose a tiddly wink you probably won’t notice; if you loose the letter “I” you are no longer able to spell “ice cream,” “igloo,” and “insipid” and children the world over reel in mourning at no longer being able to express that rice cakes have no flavor and should be illegal.
