Another Simpsons Moment

We’re seeing evolution in action in the Cook Toybox.
A long time ago, we had the occasional toy which would make a sound or say a word or two, then came the keyboards and noisemakers. Then, good old ‘Furby’, whose comments always sounded vaguely insulting.
Now, courtesy Santa, we’re housing Alexa under our roof. I don’t mind ‘her’ too much, mainly because the technology it takes for Alexa to co-ordinate her own wardrobe is quite impressive. I can even handle the toys which try to mis-educate you, like the ‘Speak and Spell’ I owned when I was younger which penalised me for the incorrect spelling of ‘colour’.
But when the toys start setting a bad example,… well, that’s when you have a problem.
Oftentimes, we’re informed in a nasal valley-girl accent that the word of the day is ‘Glam-a-licious‘ and that Allanah’s nickname will be ‘Sweetness‘ for the day. Cute. (Or, as Alexa would say ‘Ooh la la‘: she’s ‘tres’ much into French strangulation.) But the big one came the other day. I will quote verbatim:
“Hey, I had a dream about you last night. I dreamt you were a fashion designer in New York“.
I kid you not. Like; Bogus, dood. Whatever happened to ‘You will grow up and marry a rich doctor’?