Picture it in your mind. I mean it, you’ll really have to stretch those old imagination muscles because this is totally not illustrated. There was once a big bucket of green Army Men. One hundred of those suckers, all green and plastic and ready for action. Except Army Man number one hundred. He was cast at the end of the day, and there was a glob of plastic missing from his mold and as it happened he had but one leg. This might have been worse, but with the big plastic base they get molded on, he could stand there all Army Man-like just fine. He was the one with the walkie talkie, so he didn’t have to do a lot of walking around anyway.
In the playroom there were many other toys. A “plethora of toys” if you talk that way. There were jacks and little building blocks and small race cars but the most attractive to the eye was the Dream Castle. It had big pink plastic turrets and a shimmery moat with plastic swans and up in the tower there was a doll who, for copyright purposes, we’ll call “Ballerina Barbara”. The little lady was a dancer, and she stretched out both her arms, and raised one of her legs so high, that the tin soldier could not see it at all because he was too busy looking up her skirts seeing if she was wearing any panties (she was, they were painted on), and he thought that she, like himself, had only one leg because plastic soldiers aren’t known for their deep cognitive abilities. “That is the wife for me,” he thought, “but she is too grand, and lives in a castle, while I have only a bucket to live in, one hundred of us altogether in authentic fighting poses, that is no place for her. Still I must try and make her acquaintance.”
Luckily, the next day was the Great War. The Army Men were deployed all throughout the play room. They had their tanks out and the fire truck that was actually had a death beam instead of the fire hose and the dinosaurs and even a pink teddy bear that didn’t fight so much a offer fashion advice (the bear’s name was “Mr. Swampington” and he was beloved by all). The one-legged walkie talkie guy was positioned on top of the castle so he could see if anyone was sneaking up on his buddies then he could radio down to them and warn them. Not letting his chance go to waste he struck up a conversation with Ballerina Barbara. He tried anyway.
“Hey baby, what’s up wi’choo?”
Oddly, this smooth line didn’t seem to be working. She didn’t even stop from her stretching exercises to even look at him. So he tried another line.
“Ya mama, how 'bout you and me get together at nap time behind the toy box?”
This one got a response. As it turned out, Barbara did have two legs. She used them to stomp across the top floor of her castle and pull the drapes with a “h’rumph!” so the creepy little one-legged soldier boy couldn’t be peeping in on her while she was doing her pilates.
This crushed Joe. (The Army Man’s name was “Joe”. But then all the Army Men are named “Joe”. It’s just the way it is.) He was heartbroken. The girl with the big kazoos… the girl of his dreams didn’t love him! If Army Men could cry, Joe would be crying now. The pain! The pain! The heartbreak!
“It’s OK, honey,” he heard.
“Who… who is that?” Joe asked.
It turned out to be the pink teddy bear! No, really it was the rag doll. She was so beautiful Joe could hardly stand it! Even with her missing eye and the fluff that was poking out of her popped seam and the way her shoes wouldn’t stay tied because the ribbons were so worn. But Joe saw her through the eyes of Love and she was perfect. There was also not a whole lot of light at the bottom of the toy box and that didn’t hurt either.
Joe and Annie (that was her name, “Rag Doll Annie”) were together form then on. He quickly forgot all about Ballerina whats-her-name. Of course everyone forgot about Barbara. The cat got into the playroom a couple of days after the Great War and chewed off her face. She was so gross she got thrown out that trash day. If only she had an Army Man to protect her… But not some one-legged gimp with a walkie talkie. No way! She needed a he-man Army Man with both legs and a bazooka. This was the cat after all. If a three inch tall man is going up against the cat, he’s going to need some heavy artillery. And a Kung Fu grip wouldn’t hurt either. Especially after the cat got run off.
-Rue Christian Anderson
