Trumped Up Toy

The boys have really been getting into games lately, and one that we've introduced with decent results is Dominoes. The set we have is made of marble (I think?), and the dominoes are heavy. There aren't a ton of them either, which is fine if you're playing the game, but far from adequate if you want to set up cool domino mazes to knock down. As this was something my brothers and I loved to do as kids, I thought it would be fun to find some that were a bit more kid-friendly.

So when I was shopping for Christmas gifts, I couldn't resist getting some that were Mickey Mouse themed since we were going to Disney World as our big "family gift." And I found this:

Too perfect, right? It is so cute! It was only $5, the dominoes are plastic (there are 140 of them!), Micky Mouse themed, and there is even a cool bridge that comes with it. The boys were excited about it too.

Then I opened the box. The dominoes that I thought were standard sized are, in fact, tiny. Then I discovered that the pictures for said miniscule plastic red rectangles are not actually on them to begin with. Observe, if you will:

I added the Scotch Tape dispenser for a size reference.

They did included a sheet of tiny stickers for lucky parents to adhere themselves. See?


Ok, thought I, not that big of a deal. They are pretty cute. It will take a little time, but for $5 what did I expect?

I expected the stickers to actually stick. But this was not the case. There was no stickiness to these whatsoever. The glue had dried or something and they were just brittle. But, being that Chris had already decided that we should not take it back to the store for a refund, and also because I refuse to let this silly game get the better of me, I decided to use some of my abundant supply of scrapbooking adhesive and stick them on anyway. Take that, greedy corporate Disney marketers! Here's a peek at my process (again, the Scotch Tape was just for size reference):

It took a while, but I didn't really mind as I did it while we watched the season premiere of Chuck. Then I came to the end of the stickers. But I still had a pile of un-decorated dominoes. What the? I read the instruction sheet, and sure enough, there are only 100 stickers for 140 dominoes. I figure that they just don't want to swallow the cost to either include another 100-count sticker page or to create a separate page with just 40. So why not just pretend it was done this way on purpose?

At any rate, the dominoes are ready to play with. I did forget to mention that the aforementioned cool bridge was broken in two places.

Ah, yes, there it is. See how part of Mickey's head is missing? Fresh out of the box like that. I guess you get what you pay for. But we are going to play with this thing and have lots of fun, by golly!

If you're reading this, I hope you enjoyed my complaint.