My quest for the "Unicorn Princess"

I love NBC's The Office, I never miss an episode.  As the mother of a four-year-old girl, I especially enjoyed the episode that aired Dec. 11 where paper salesman Dwight K. Schrute bought, horded and sold (for a giant profit) the hottest toy of the holiday season.  Think Cabbage Patch Dolls circa 1982, only Dwight was buying and selling the "Princess Unicorn Doll."

The Unicorn Princess was a hilarious nod to the randomness of the must-have toys appearing each holiday season.  The Unicorn Princess looked like a Barbie Doll, but had a giant unicorn horn sticking out of her forehead.  She had a beautiful pink dress with sparkly embellishments, and even shipped with a free unicorn magic wand.  Dwight was selling these dolls from his desk at Dunder-Mifflin for $200 a pop.  (Of course the doll was worth $200, after all "her horn can pierce the sky!")

The show was obviously a tongue-in-cheek play on the great lengths parents will go to deliver the toys their kids want for the holidays. As Dwight was raking in the cash, he reminded us (in his dead-pan style) "these are not dolls, these are commodities.  Same as gold or oil."  He went on to say, "as lazy parents become more desperate, I will sell them at an enormous profit. I am simply punishing those parents who wait until the last minute to buy their children a gift." I watched the show and laughed at the fictional parents fighting over the last fictional doll.  After all (I smugly thought) who would do that? Then I went shopping on Dec. 16.

My daughter only wanted one thing for Christmas this year: the Barbie and the Diamond Castle playset (which is basically the castle,  much like the Barbie Dream Home of my childhood.)  That's it, only one thing on her list.  Cool, I thought, I will get her one big gift and then some books and clothes. Perfect plan, I am the master of holiday shopping.  So, like a Rookie-Mom, I drove to Target to buy the castle nine days before Christmas. After all, the darn thing has been on the shelf since June.

I arrived at Target, and there were no more castles. I went to Toys R Us, another Target and another Toys R Us. The only thing I found were other moms looking for the same freaking castle.  I felt a slight panic, but I still had time. I went online, and the only thing I found were online stores that would not ship the castle and an outrageous price on Amazon.  The next day I went to one more Target, back to Amazon (now the price was even higher!), and then to eBay.  My mom and mother-in-law were looking in Iowa.  I begged my friends on Facebook and Twitter for help. I was striking out.  In case you are counting, that's 8 brick-and-mortar stores and 6 online stores, and still no castle in my possession.

Before you ask, I did consider skipping the castle.  But I had no back-up plan for a present and I was boarding an airplane for holiday travel in two days.  I also set my kid's expectations for the castle: we wrote letters to Santa about the castle, we sat on Santa's lap and asked for the castle.  All at my prodding.  Rookie. Mom. Move.

So, in an act of desperation, I bit the bullet and bought the castle on eBay.  Yes, Barbie and the Diamond Castle became my Unicorn Princess.  And there's some dude in Los Angeles who channeled his inner Dwight K. Schrute, sold me the castle, and laughed all the way to the bank.  As Dwight said, "fa-la- la-la-la, la-la, ca-ching!"

This is an original Silicon Valley Moms Blog Post.  When I am not obsessing over an insignificant Barbie toy, I am obsessing over insignificant television at Laptop Television Mom.

Photo Credit to the people who made the awesome Unicorn Princess Web site!