MARY ANN FITZMORRIS / L’Observateur / August 14, 1999

I noticed last night that Inspector Gadget had finally assumed his rightful place in my son’s life. He was on the floor in his room, under a pile ofthings; one of the legs lying nearby. This is as it should be.Last week, I was worried about the kid. Inspector Gadget fever hadconsumed him, but that was only because he was working to assemble the toy by his birthday party. It’s important to have goals, right? Even the lesslofty ones, or, in this case, the least lofty.

As Happy Meals go, I have to admit that Inspector Gadget was a clever one, even if he did cost about $50. But it was a slow bleed, suckedout in Happy little increments of $2.50. I’m just Happy (I think) the kidfound out about this cultural opportunity before it was too late.

While he was at camp, my daughter went through a drive up with a friend and got a meal that included the inspector’s leg. When my son returned heliterally stumbled upon it and was so intrigued he actually picked it up! Closer examination revealed some neat tricks, and the sheer size of the leg conjured up images that made the pursuit of all the pieces seem worthwhile. You’ll never guess where we had lunch that day.We ran into nearly everyone we knew. The boys gathered to compare notes,and my son discovered that he was two weeks behind the collection! Using Happy math, that meant we had missed two pieces!! The quest was on. There were no trips in the car that did not include apass through a drive up. We begged the attendant to dig around for any ofthe toys we missed. Touched by our panic she actually came up with one.A few more lunches and drive through passes and we had collected all four appendages and the belt/watch that really keeps time. But we had nothingto hang it on! The torso had been given out first; two weeks before we became hooked on the fragmented wonder.

The next day we broke Happy Meals with friends at the McDonald’s near my house. The toy that day was the watch, so we didn’t get it. I wish we had,because right now a friend of my son’s is suffering from Watch Envy, as the only boy in his circle without Gadget’s watch.

Anyway, while the kids were in the Playland, I noticed one of my son’s critical missing pieces sitting on the table in front of a boy we knew! At first I thought it might be a grease-induced mirage, but then I saw that there were others in the dining room.

My first instinct was to call him immediately, but I knew he’d be coming over to interrupt our conversation any time. (It had been nearly fiveminutes since the last visit.) Sure enough, I had barely finished thethought when he appeared at the table. I gave him the good news.He ran to the boy he knew who informed him that the torso was the toy he just gotten with his Happy Meal. My son yelled to his friend in thePlayland, and it looked like an ant hill emptying out. Kids stormed thecounters to get the torso.

When we arrived home, the phone was ringing. It was the mom of anotherof my son’s friends, calling with the tip that the torso was at the McDonald’s near her house, where they just had lunch in the Quest For The Completion Of Gadget.

We could smell our victory now. Just the copter head and the front torsoleft. My son called all the McDonald’s in the area. He found them both onthe way to places I actually needed to go.

The copter head came first, then we moved on to the front torso. My sontore the plastic off the last piece, and assembled the inspector on the dashboard. We both laughed. “He looks goofy,” he says.I said to myself, “I feel goofy.” Aloud, I asked, ” What now?””Back to Taco Bell. They have Star Wars.”

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