MussoLOLen is Always Right! |

Most women my age lust over whatever Cosmo magazine proclaims is the hottest thing to wear this season. Not me. There are two things at the top of my OMG LAUREN MUST HAVE THIS OR DIE list, neither of which are articles of clothing or in any way practical or useful.

I want toys.

Specifically, the Littlest Pet Shop Whirl-Around-Playground playset and Pinky Street dolls.

And I want them simply because they are cute.

My obsession with Littlest Pet Shop toys began when Pat and I wandered in a toy store out of boredom. At the girls’ section, I let out an earsplitting shriek when my eyes landed on the bobbling head of a Siamese cat plushie from the Littlest Pet Shop. The price of the plushie was way more than I could afford at the moment, but then I noticed that they carried miniature animal bobblehead figures for just 99 pesos. Pat got me my first Littlest Pet Shop toy, the Siamese kitty, and a week later he bought me the Twin Panda Bears. :) To the amusement of the salespeople, I practically skipped towards the cash register with my Siamese kitty toy in tow, but I didn’t care. It’s cute and it’s mine. And its head bobbles when I poke it.

Although I plan on slowly collecting the animal figurines, my ultimate goal is to buy the Littlest Pet Shop Playground playset. I see it in toy stores everywhere and it looks like it’d look great ontop of my bookshelf. But the clincher was when I went to my 10-year old cousin’s house and tried out the playset (no, I didn’t go to her house for that purpose :p). Not only was it a lot bigger and cuter than what was depicted in the box; the thing actually has magnets, making it look as though the little animal figurines are moving around the place on their own! I must’ve looked rather silly to my younger cousins, a “grown-up” like me playing with toy animals like a little kid. I didn’t find it weird that I was playing with my cousin’s toys, until I realized that I felt slightly triumphant upon noticing that my younger cousin did not have the Siamese kitty and the twin pandas among her collection of bobbling little animals.

Collecting Pinky dolls might be less weird than playing with and collecting Littlest Pet Shop toys since I have friends my age who have Pinkys galore. Pinkys are 4-inch plastic dolls dressed in cute, trendy outfits. The awesome thing about them is that they have interchangable parts, allowing you to switch clothes, accessories, and hair to create a whole new doll. Although I’ve heard my friends talk about their dolls, I didn’t really appreciate them until I got to play with them at a party I went to tonight. THEY ARE SO FREAKING CUTE! I spent a good hour just switching clothes and accessories around while giggling and squealing about how cute they are. But unlike Littlest Pet Shop toys, I can’t just waltz into the nearest toy store and buy them. Pinkys are available locally for around 500 esos, but if I get them online at Hobby Link Japan, they sell for around 300. Guess where my Google adsense money will be going next month. :D

Naturally, I am very well-aware of the fact that I am 20 years old and that most women my age would not even consider buying these plastic playthings for themselves. I don’t care that norms dictate that I’m probably too old to be playing with toys. The labels say they’re for kids ages 3 and up. Besides, I’m probably never going to look a day older than 16 so I can still get away with assembling Pinkys and shaking the heads of my Littlest Pet Shop figures.