It sits there, mocking me. It has become the bane of my existence. I should have known better, but this time I really thought it would be different. It had a cupholder and a storage basket. A cupholder and a storage basket. Music to my mother ears. And it wasn’t even the cheapest one. How bad could it be? The answer: Really bad. And now, I’m ready to take a flame thrower to Baby Squiggle’s stroller after only four months. How I loathe that stroller.
We have a painful past, strollers and I. The first one, a Graco Duo Glider, was o.k. It held Neener and Roo’s infant seats for the early months, and it handled reasonably well for a double stroller. No cupholder, but it had cute lime green and pale blue plaid fabric. And it was on sale. Then, some arsehole stole it. Happens all the time in this neighbourhood, arseholes stealing strollers. Oh, but I hexed that arsehole, I hexed him good. However, that did not bring our stroller back (although it may have caused the thief to sprout Dolly Parton-esque man boobs, and a tail.) So we bought a new one. Another Duo Glider, this one an LE model with air-filled tires. Air-filled tires. More music to mother ears concerned about streetcar tracks and lumpy sidewalks causing whiplash. Still no cupholder, and pricier than the last, but it made for a slightly smoother ride. Until the tires started to go flat all the time. And then started falling off. While we were crossing the street. I began to suspect that the stroller was out to get us. The final straw came when the left front tire hurled itself out in to the intersection, this time too far to be retrieved, as my two year old babes and I were hustling across a busy crosswalk. When we’d managed to wobble to safety, I hoisted the kids up on my hips and abandoned the evil contraption right then and there, only a little worried that it might try to follow us back home.
Then I got a side-by-side jogging stroller that did not fit through any doors. It was promptly returned. A stroller that won’t fit through doorways? Sheer uselessness. Ahhh but then I found true love. The Baby Jogger City Double. It had tough tires, a storage basket, turned on a dime, and never met a door it didn’t glide through. I would never actually jog with it, but knowing that I could if I had to was enough. It cost as much as as much as a well-used car, and had no cup holder, but that didn’t matter. The year we spent together was the best year of my strolling life. Unfortunately, a double jogging stroller is no good for a single newborn. I’m actually supposed to be selling it, but I just can’t seem to let it go yet. I need to make sure it goes to a good home.
But back to the aforementioned bane of my existance, this Eddie Bauer “Travel System.” Turns out it has trouble traveling over anything. Streetcar tracks. Divots in the sidewalk. Puddles. Grass. All are serious whiplash hazards for me and Squiggles, as the wheels come to a grinding halt when faced with anything higher than a squirrel’s knee. Well, maybe we just have terrible sidewalks, surely it is fine inside. Nope. On smooth floors, the front wheels turn sideways and inexplicably jam that way. But the cupholder? Isn’t that a small consolation? Well, what use is a cup holder when any slight variation in terrain causes my Chai Latte to spew out in a steaming geyser of lost deliciousness. I might as well hold the cup in my teeth like I did before. Eddie Bauer may make parkas and bathing suits “that complement today’s modern outdoor lifestyle. ” But it makes lends its name to craptastic strollers. Strollers that are afraid of the outdoors. And the indoors for that matter.
So I’m hoping, praying, that this post will miraculously be picked up by the Stroller People (not the scary kind, those half stroller/half human monsters..the kind that give brown nosing mom bloggers free strollers!) If that happens, you are cordially invited to a good ol’ fashioned stroller burnin’. I’ll get the permits and the gasoline, you bring the wine. That sucker is going up in flames. But, if a new stroller fails to magically appear, I’m not above taking matters into my own hands. Maybe that miserable stroller will accidently be left outside, maybe in a place where stroller stealing arseholes are known to lurk. Maybe a certain stroller stealing arsehole with Dolly Parton boobs and a tail will snatch it, thinking it’s a good stroller that will be easy to pawn. It has a cupholder afterall. As he’s pushing it across the street, it’ll jam on the street car tracks and give him a wicked case of whiplash. Then, the only person who will buy it from him is the crazy Asian lady down the street who uses baby strollers to take her plant for a walk. She’ll only give him a buck for it. Meanwhile, Baby Squiggles and I will get a nice new stroller. We will go jogging and 4-wheeling with it, and look hip and stylish while doing so. And everyone will have gotten what they deserve.
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