St. Patrick’s Day 2022

 

 

Happy St. Patrick's Day from Sister and me!

(I'm on the right)

Proof of Life Squeak

Plush toys are my toy of choice.  I’m not a huge fan of bones (you don’t get anywhere with hard bones), rubbery squeaky toys are no match for my large gnashing teeth (they pop like balloons and are not repairable), and I’m not allowed to have rope toys.  Plush toys, however, are soft, and squeaky, and perhaps best of all, satisfyingly destructible.  And oh boy am I tough on them.  Here’s just how tough:

• Every night, at least one toy is taken away from me because I’ve started ripping the stuffing out of it.  On a good night, four toys are taken away.
• I know the terms “no plucking” (ripping with my front teeth) and “no back teeth” (sawing through toy fabric using my back teeth), but choose to ignore both. 
• Not a single one of my toys has all the limbs it started with. 
• There’s an entire closet floor in my house dedicated to the storage of toys in need of an operation in the doll hospital and the area outside that closet is a holding zone for toys that are in imminent danger of needing a trip to the hospital (toys that were taken away from me not because they had a hole but because I was fixated on making one).
  

But despite the destructive nature of my play, I’ve learned ways of prolonging the inevitable moment when my family realizes what I’m up to and takes away my victim before I’ve shredded it to the point of no return. It’s called the “Proof of Life Squeak.” 

As I furiously pick and rip my way through a weak spot in the toy, I keep my ears tuned to any sound of my family showing interest in what I’m doing (usual warnings include the issuing of the dreaded “is he being good?” question and the creak of a chair as the occupant bends over to check on me).  As soon as this warning is issued, I stop my ripping, grab the entire toy in my mouth, and give it a good squeeze so that the squeaker (I’m always careful not to kill the squeaker) cries out.

It works every time.  Because the squeaker is usually in the middle of the toy, my family naively assumes that if they hear squeaking I can’t possibly be ripping or gnawing on a seam.  Once the heat is off and my family resumes whatever they were doing prior to checking on me, I go back to my destructive ways.

Eventually, my family catches on and all the “Proof of Life Squeaks” in the world won’t prevent them from noticing either the loud ripping sound or the pile of stuffing littering the ground.  They toy is immediately transported to the doll hospital and I move on to a new one.  The process begins again.

Released from the Doll Hospital

This weekend, Sister took the time to operate on all the toys in the doll hospital.  Holes were stitched closed, limbs were amputated, squeakers removed, and stuffing was either pulled out or stuffed back in depending on the situation.

Look at all those grateful terrified button eyes, staring back blankly from the recovery couch.  It's like they all secretly know that their time outside the hospital will be short.  I wonder how they know?

PS:  I have personally seen to it that three patients have already been readmitted to the hospital.