Less than mets the eye

Those of you who are comfortable with admiting that you are generation X-ers are more than likely able to remember the Transformer song/slogan "Transformers, more than meets the eye" (oh come on, I know you know it, along with the Castle Greyskull thing from He Man). Well, my two young nephews are complete Tranformers addicts and I was asked by their mum if I could track down a Transformer for each of them that converted from the robot (autobot? Whatever) into the car for their Christmas present. No worries, I thought, how hard could it be?

Farking hard, it turns out - close to nigh on impossible. Even He Man would have had trouble with this one and I bet he has much better connections in the toy spin off world than I do. It was not that finding Tranformer toys was hard, they were everywhere. Finding one that TRANSFORMED from one thing to another turned out to be a big old ask. After dragging myself around the various toy stores in Canberra only to be confronted with box after box of the little buggers all saying "non converting model", I was getting mighty cheesed off. I took some time out to consult one of my favourite dictionaries and guess what? Transform means "change or be changed in appearance, form or nature" (thanks Oxford Concise Dictionary, paperback edition). I also checked the thesaurus and it went into a similar line of description, which led me to believe that the toy makers had their heads firmly up their bottoms when they thought we would all be duped into thinking we were getting our money's worth when we bought a non-converting Transformer. I finally tracked down two of the little buggers that did convert after being fired out of a battery powered gun. Don't remember that in any of the comics or recent film, but I was beyond caring by that point. It could have converted after you sang to it nicely and massaged it tyres and I still would have bought it. So, with luck, I am now elevated to the status of present buying guru. One that has a rather grumpy disposition towards toy manufacturers and "non conversion", but a guru none the less.