A few years back, when my grandaughter was not two, we got her a talking Barney. She adored her talking Barney, but at 20 months, she began to tire of its repertoire of phrases. We used Barney to record a message on our answering machine ("hello again to all my friends"), but then he retired to the big pile of her toys at the bottom of the stairwell. But Barney is an emotionally needy dinosaur. He would be quiet for days, then without a human touch- "Can you find something blue?" and then back to silence. Barney could not be turned off. My cat developed a particular loathing for this non-human, non animal thing. We were really happy to see Barney leave with Samantha a few weeks later. He was last seen in the back of a car that my son-in -law was taking to the junk yard about two years later. By this time Samantha had grown to hate Barney as much as our cat did. Barney still uttered the odd phrase every few weeks. He's probably at Al's U-PIC-M auto parts even now, scaring people who are scavenging for their cars and trucks.

Seth from China