This Ain't Your Kids' Toy Story

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         That plush purple bastard was ruining my life.  He was everywhere; his polygonal presence popping up at the most inopportune moments and smiling at me with that maddening mono-toothed grin that always – always – brought the good things in my life crashing down around me.  I was going to kill Josh for this.

         My roommate Josh has a reputation for being a bit of a prankster, and to be fair, I did know this before moving in with him.  It wasn't an uncommon occurrence to find that my multivitamins had been swapped with laxatives, or to be suddenly inundated with emails suggesting perverse and sometimes downright illegal acts thanks to a profile that had mysteriously been created for me on Adult Friendfinder.  This was what it meant to be friends and roommates with Josh, and I accepted that with a fair amount of tolerance and good humor.

         The real problem with Josh is that he doesn't know when to stop.  His jokes and pranks inevitably go too far, and I'm pretty sure that he's incapable of recognizing the social cues that the rest of us use to determine when enough is enough.  Whether that made him just oblivious or an actual sociopath I couldn't be sure, but I figured it was in my best interests to just go with the flow as much as possible.

         I had my first encounter with Toothy (as Josh was fond of calling it) when I came home from class one night and prepared to settle in at my computer to work on a term paper.  There was Toothy, sitting on my keyboard and grinning his idiot grin at me.  I have to admit the ridiculousness of it did make me smile a little.  In retrospect, though, that was probably my first mistake; giving Josh the impression that I appreciated surprise visits from that wretched thing.

         The next morning, it was hiding from me in the cupboard as I reached for a box of cereal.  Then it was in the mailbox... and the linen closet... and dryer.  After that, it was waiting for me in the shower, which was the tipping point.  I don't know if you've ever washed your junk while a cartoon face grins at you with arched eyebrows, but it's not the most comfortable of situations.  Then of course, there was the damn-near heart attack I had when I was backing my car out of the driveway and found it smiling at me in the rear view mirror from the backseat.  I nearly ran over the neighbor's dog and slammed into a passing garbage truck as I tried to get the car, and my heart rate, back under control.

         That was the point where I had to lay down the law with Josh.  It was too much, I told him.  It was funny for a while, but that purple plush toy with the stupid smirk was getting in the way now.  Popping up unexpectedly is fine when it's in a cupboard or sitting on my desk... but when it's ogling my goods in the shower and nearly responsible for serious auto body damage, that's taking it too far.

         If only I had known; the only thing that encourages Josh more than initial approval is subsequently demands to stop.



         I freely admit that I'm not the suavest of ladies' men, and in fact, it's a downright miracle if I can manage to convince one of them to come to bed with me.  So you can imagine the frustration and convincing one such lovely lady to return to the house with me and do the kinds of things that college kids do when they've been at a frat party and had too much to drink.  Unfortunately, she wasn't nearly drunk enough to ignore that purple son of a bitch as he grinned at us from a very prominent place on the bookcase.  Darla, or Doreen, or whatever her name was got out of the mood real quick when she realized that there would be an audience for the performance.  Adding insult to injury, she didn't notice it until fairly far along in the foreplay department, which meant that I had to spend the rest of the night with balls roughly the color of my plush nemesis.

         At that point, the purple menace disappeared for a few days.  The poor bastard must have found its way into the trash can... I swear I don't know how it got there.  But what I know even less about it how it managed to find its way out before the next collection day and back into my life.  This time, it went too far.  The stuffed demon managed to find its way into my backpack and caught a ride to class.  Even worse, in order to fit in my backpack in the first place, it necessitated the removal of a notebook which contained the term paper that was due that afternoon.  You can imagine my reaction when a stuffed toy is the only thing I have available to turn in for the class which will determine whether or not I can graduate from college.

         I'm not entirely sure what happened next.  At least that's what my lawyer told me to say.  I'm supposed to tell you that it's all a blur and I didn't realize that Josh was in the garage when I locked it up and left the car running.  I'm supposed to tell you that it was the desperate act of a bereaved friend when I tried to cram that purple pestilence inside his open casket at the funeral, so the two of them could spend the rest of eternity together.  And I'm supposed to tell you that I regret my moment of temporary insanity and look forward to being completely and totally rehabilitated at the state-funded mental health facility to which I've been remanded.

         Despite everything that's happened, I'm going to be okay.  The most important thing is that I never again have to see the shit-eating grin of that horrid purple devil.  Toothy was buried with Josh, to remain with him until they've both rotted away to nothing in the ground.  Knowing that, I thought I'd be okay.

         Until the day my mother sent me that demented lederhosen-clad plastic porcupine.  The hospital staff was kind enough to mount it on a shelf above the door.  They say it's so I can enjoy it without hurting myself, but I know the real reason... so it can stare at me all day and night with those black, beady eyes... knowing what I've done and judging me for it.

http://i1233.photobucket.com/albums/ff384/stevenshades/storytime004.jpg

         It was at that moment that I realized I kind of missed the friendly countenance of the purple one.



(1,120 words)