I started collecting the ones I liked. Most of them had been run over; all of them had been cheap, but they moved me. I don’t doubt that most had been chucked out a window after a Happy Meal gone bad (whether internally or externally depends on your attitude regarding fast food.).

I still have a huge bag of them. I decorated an old BMX bike with some of them one year, covering it in what one of my employees called OCD Baroque (thanks, Andrew. that was an awesome compliment.)

But my favorite foundling still occupies pride of place on the mantle: a much-beleaguered wrestling figure, who would be about 12 inches tall if he hadn’t been run over enough to have been split into 5 pieces. Half of his jaw is torn off (which makes his face quite winning), he’s missing one of his legs and half a butt-cheek (and what a cheek!), but he can be propped up and I think he looks fierce.

When I found him, I was beginning a medical journey that was potentially deadly, crippling and very painful. I was 31 and had been lucky enough to have been athletic most of my life. So me and my wrestler guy seemed a perfect match.

tbh, most of those throw-away toys turn out to be branded properties. New one for me, though not a surprise. I think he may be Stompin’ Steve Austin. Or Boss Steve Austin. Or maybe not.

Anyway, I know that passionate pedestrians can hardly have overlooked the proliferation of discarded toys. And for those who don’t care to spend money on new cheap toys, there are may foundlings out there who make great art.

The art they make is a little less shiny and a lot less phony. One benefit is that, after a few weeks or months on sidewalks and roads, they’ve invariably lost that vile chemical off-gas they carry from the factory. These fucking “toys” are made in sweat-shops and are simply shiny pieces of manipulation that bring moms/dads/guardians/chickens to the trough of the fast food restaurant to fill up on shit that’s filthier than what might be found on the toys. (Parents, you can wash them.)

So to let these “toys” shine in their own honest light, I think it only fair to display them in the broken condition in which they’re found. It only highlights their role in the marketing/industrial food industry. I mean, sure paint them, bathe them in glitter, but don’t hide their wounds. Good reminder of what that industry is all about.

No more to add, just wanted to use the word “festoon.”