Toys, Toys, Line One

This is just a description of how my father said something funny that I and others have repeated for 50 years.

He told us all that he had been at the new Kmart.

It is worth saying that, at this time in the 1970s, Kmart was still new and exotic for us.

There was a big field behind my house growing up. “The woods” started on the other side of the field. As an adult thinking about it now, I understand that the woods went all the way to the frontage road by the highway. But as a kid, the woods were an abstraction like a fairytale forest. I didn’t conceive of it as something that could have an ending.

Then one day my brothers told all the kids to come see something amazing. So we road our bikes deep into the woods. Following a narrow trail winding through the trees, I thought that we would just ride forever.

But we came out at the rim of a canyon. Below was a sea of mud stretching to the highway. We rode down the edge and out onto the surface. My bike wheels got caked with thick, gummy mud immediately. I jumped off to push and sank to my knees. I lifted my leg and my rubber boot stayed in the mud.

Everyone was shouting “This is Kmart! This is Kmart!” What was a Kmart? Why was a big mud pit called a Kmart?

So when there was an actual store with a toy section with Hot Wheels and G.I. Joes, it seemed miraculous. Like it rose up out of that mud.

We were all a little uncertain whether we could just walk inside. Sort of how I feel now about Tiffany’s. Is it okay to just go in and look around?

When my father said that he had been in the Kmart, it was like he had gone to visit a UFO crash site.

He told us that some lady came on the intercom with an extremely thick Mississippi accent. Before imitating her, he stressed that he was amazed that Kmart would let someone who spoke this way use a public address system and promised us that he wasn’t exaggerating. She said, “Toe-ease, Toe-ease, lie-un wun.”

That is, “Toys, Toys, line one.”

Here is an audio file of the pronunciation:

We laughed til we hurt over this. And we all repeated it. Toys, toys, line one.

And every time we went into the Kmart we desperately hoped that we’d hear that lady.

Over the years, I’ve told this story to people and they start saying it too. Toys, toys, line one.

And they say it like they had been there when my dad said it.

My Brooklyn-raised wife will say it. She tells me that it’s just fun to say.

But often there is some sonic trigger. My dog is named Toasty. To get him to do something, we usually say it twice. “Toasty … Toasty!” Someone will echo “Toys, toys, line one.”

It’s also a good way to fill dead air. You know, you realize no one has said anything for a few minutes. Which, for me, sort of simulates my dad’s original state of dreamy distraction wandering the Kmart aisle when that lady came on the intercom. So everyone is sitting around lost in his or her own world, and you just say “Toys, toys, line one.”

Strange that it’s so infectious. 50 years later, people who never came near that Kmart repeat something this long forgotten lady said. My wife notes, “Well, it was second hand already when your father repeated it to YOU.” Stories can have that power.

So now you can do the same.