Some of you may remember the infamous day last month when I celebrated E’s birthday with not one, but two trips to the store for replacement Lisa Frank backpack and lunchbox. (for those who missed it, the dog ate them). Well now you lucky folks get the update on this situation…
Exactly one week after the purchase of those replacement items, E came home with a completely busted zipper on the backpack. Argh. I was done with this situation so I dragged her to Office Depot and forced her to choose a real backpack. She was not happy about this. These backpacks were just plain old backpacks, sure to last more than a week, and there was no bright color beautiful (aka horrendous) backpack in sight. She pouted. She stomped. She whined. She refused to choose. She insisted I take her somewhere else for something pretty. The Denise voice was used and we came home with a plain powder blue backpack that has now lasted quite nicely for just shy of one month. Success. (I also purchased a real backpack for his highness, J, because he’d been walking around with a rip in the brand new backpack his other parents bought him and the zipper broke on it as well. Some folks need a lesson in back to school shopping or they ought to leave it to the professionals… whatever).
Fast forward a few weeks and we see E climb into the car after school with a broken Lisa Frank lunchbox! I’m not kidding. The little plastic ring that you slip the velcro tab to close it came off. Seemed relatively functional to me so I wasn’t all that concerned with it. Two minutes later I see whiteness floating in the air when I glanced in the rearview mirror and I hear RJ shrieking at E to stop throwing that stuff at her. Sigh. The child decided it would be fun to tear the lunchbox completely apart and throw it at her sister. Again the Denise voice was used and I decided to share a little bit of health news with the child…
That stuff she was happily tearing apart and playing with and throwing all over the place might just contain high levels of lead. And E, did you know that lead is really dangerous? The fluff stops flying.
Lisa Frank’s lunchboxes might not be on the list of death boxes but then again, we didn’t test the darn thing. Regardless, no more Lisa Frank products will be purchased by any member of the Flamingo House family. We’re done with Lisa Frank and her beautiful colorful madness. Good riddance is all I can say about it.