Elmo's potty mouth

Olivia and I made the local news yesterday - and no, it wasn't because I finally gave in to my Starbucks rage and changed a poopy diaper in the middle of a coffehouse!

It was all about Elmo (as is usually the case in any household with a 2 year old).

Olivia received this book for her birthday called "Potty Time with Elmo" - it's one of those books with the sound buttons on the side. Well, little did we know what sounds would be coming from the book.

When we opened the book, my brother-in-law said "that's the book people are selling on Ebay for $60", because according to him, Elmo asked if someone wanted to die. I said, "oh sure", thinking that no way could that cute little red monster ever say anything terrible. I was wrong.

Sure enough, when you press the button for "Baby David" (Elmo's doll) it says "Uh oh! Who wants to die!?" -- in Elmo's cute little voice no less. It sounds rather sinister, actually. (It's supposed to say "Uh oh! Who has to go?")

Being the responsible mom that I am, I contacted the publishing company and informed them of the "defect" in the book. Within 5 minutes of my email being sent, I received an email from the company that said this: Thank you for notifying us about your experience with Potty Time with Elmo, We apologize for the inconvenience this has caused we aware of this problem and we are issuing a revised version of the book. We would be more than happy to send you a replacement. If you like please call me direct at 312-649-3619 or e-mail me your shipping information in order to make the necessary arrangements.

Now I'm thinking: ARE YOU KIDDING ME???

This company knows that the book is defective, yet it's still being sold to unsuspecting kids and their parents? Normally, when a child's toy is defective the manufacturer will issue a recall and replace all existing toys with non-defective ones. Not in this case. Rather than recalling all the "Potty Time with Elmo" books and replacing them with books that have the correct phrase, this company is WAITING for parents to contact them.

This is not only LAZY, but it's completely IRRESPONSIBLE.

So, I made a decision - I emailed the local ABC affiliate here in Toledo and told them my story. And yesterday morning a cameraman showed up and did an interview with me and Olivia.

We were on the 5 and 5:30 newscast and as I type, we are still the "top" story on the 13ABC website (http://www.13abc.com/). The headline is: "Elmo book has unusual message." To say the least.

[Continuing my "15 minutes" -- this morning I was a "guest" on a local radio show].

My whole point of contacting the media was to make other parents aware of this book and to maybe make local retailers take notice and voluntarily take the "defective" books off their shelves and get replacements from the publisher. My brother-in-law actually found several copies at a local Wal-Mart, and they all contained the "who wants to die" statement. Seems to me that the company is doing nothing.

Meanwhile, I am going to keep the offending book -- and try to get a replacement from the company.

[Note: As of 1-12-06, there were 4 copies of the "defective" book being sold on EBay. The highest bid as of today was $25.99].