Cabbage Patch Kid craze has nothing on these dolls.

My Cantaloupe Kids

By E. P. "Ned" Burke



Remember years ago, around Christmas time, when the insanity of the Cabbage Patch Kids was at its zenith?

Matronly mothers became as hard-boiled as week-old Easter eggs. Some even went so far as to tell other parent’s children that Santa Claus had a hernia and would not be able to make the trip that year just so they would have a better chance at getting a Cabbage Patch Kid for their own darling offspring.

One woman in New Jersey actually elbowed another shopper unconscious over one of those cherubic creatures. Then there was the sweet old lady in Detroit who stomped on a little six-year-old girl, beat her about the head and gnawed on her arm until the child finally relinquished her death-grip on a Cabbage Patch Kid.

Well, I never want to see a return of such madness, so I have manufactured my own dolls. I call them The Cantaloupe Swamp Kids.

My dolls are made from vine-ripe cantaloupes with radish slices for eyes and lemon rind lips. Ears can be of Brussels sprout or spinach leaves. And, noses come in edible delights of cherry, olive or almond.

Each Cantaloupe Kid has his or her own authentic Death Certificate telling you the exact day and hour he or she was plucked screaming from the vine. You also receive with each purchase, genuine Consumption Papers giving you the legal right to devour (eat) the Cantaloupe Kid after your own kid tires of the doll.

I first attempted to package each doll in a gallon-size pickle jar filled with Spanish moss and nitroglycerin. The moss was for the swamp-look I wanted and the nitro was simply to deter aggressive shoppers from snatching one of my dolls too hastily from another shopper.

Unfortunately, I carelessly left a dozen jars in the trunk of my car and my wife took the car to go shopping. On the way, two nuns in a station wagon sideswiped her. The impact set off the nitro. The nuns flew through the air, finally crashing through the roof of a nightclub featuring male exotic dancers. I was told the nuns had to be escorted from the premises two weeks later. My wife also was not hurt as the Good Lord watches over nuns in station wagons and all their victims.

My second attempt was more successful. Now, I place my Cantaloupe Kids in a large filled jar of quicksand. It still retains the swamp appearance, but it is far less dangerous. Unless, of course, the jar is disturbed; in which case, the doll is quickly sucked beneath the quicksand. The same fate, I’m afraid, happens to anyone foolish enough to reach into the jar to rescue the doll.

I have one right here now. And, I must humbly admit that this dopey kid is going to be a real moneymaker for me.

Ooooops!

I dropped my pen into the jar. Excuse me while I just reach in here and . . . Hey! My hand! My arm! The quicksand is pulling me in! My Cantaloupe Kid just crawled up my arm and ran away! Call the police! Call Roto-Rotor! Call my next of kin! Call somebody!

HEEELLLLPPPP!

Plop . . . plop . . . fizz . . . fizz.


(Moral: Never be sucked into trusting a kid with a cantaloupe head.)
*****

©e. P. "Ned" Burke