You know what?  With the introduction of the Trash Pack Garbage Truck I can now say, with all sincerity and absolute honesty, that I have seen it all.

In days gone by it used to be that trash removers were akin to plumbers or podiatrists; people you need but whose services you never really talk about because they are rather embarrassing.  It’s different today.  Good heavens, just watch the people’s television for any length of time and you will see advertisements for all sorts of personal products, so I guess it was only a matter of time before they turned a trash truck into a toy.

The Trash Pack Garbage Truck is rather interesting, even if it is a trash truck, and they are also incredibly popular with small children which, when taking into account the fact that the trash cans hold small figurines for the kids to “find” may have something to do with it.  They’re also chunky and brightly colored though, which are always a winning combination when you are dealing with young kids.  But of course there is also the “ick” factor.

Perhaps it is the fact that parents are always telling kids not to play with the trash, or telling them that the trash is “dirty” or “icky” but that has just made these toys even more popular.

That’s right; popular.  Each trash truck can transport up to ten “trashies” or trash cans, each of which holds a small figure that resemble nothing so much as gang members who have dressed themselves up in trash.

While trashies (individual cans holding a figure) are sold separately, the Trash Pack Garbage Truck comes with two trashies, which gives your kid a leg up in the trashie collection department and, seeing as that there are over a hundred trashies to collect, this could be something that your child is doing for quite some time to come.

I honestly didn’t think that I could be surprised by anything after my very long life, but the ingenuity of our “small toys” department has definitely proven its worth with this most unusual of additions to our Christmas Toy List.  I mean, here you’ll even find different categories of trashies; “Putrid Pizza” and “Grubz” and “Mucky Maggot” and “Bin Critters.”

For some reason these trashies seem to be especially popular with small boys; probably because girls’ reactions seem to range from “Eww, gross!” to un specified shrieks and watching their reactions is probably part of their allure.

I’ll be the first to say that I backed Santa 100% when he shot down the request to add actual garbage pail scents to the trashies.  I’m the one who has to hold the bag after all, and can you imagine smelling Putrid Pizza all night long?  Not to mention the fact that most parents would probably never let them into the house, regardless of how popular they are, and they we’d have hoards of them building up in the Workshop, and wouldn’t that be a mess?