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Health & Fitness

Pillow Pets: The Torture Companion

Sorority Mom learns the importance of a pillow pet.

During a conversation my daughter and I were having before she left for college, she mentioned she wanted to buy a pillow pet to take with her to school.  Never being a fan of stuffed animals as a little girl, I was very surprised, and touched, that she suddenly felt the need to buy one now.  As waves of emotions began to wash over me (“She’s preparing for the inevitable homesickness…”, I thought to myself “…for when she needs some comfort, and I can’t be there…”), my daughter chimed in with her explanation.

“The coach HATES pillow pets! All of the girls on the team have one, and hold it against the windows of the bus when we are getting ready to leave for our away games, so as she’s walking to the bus, all the pillow pets are staring at her.  Isn’t that funny?” 

Hilarious.

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After I tell my one and only I’ll purchase her torture companion, and confirm she has no preference, I am excited to start my search.  Having already survived the dorm room shopping expedition, and subsequent rescue by sympathetic Sorority Moms from spending hundreds of dollars on unnecessary items, this shopping trip will be simple.

When will I learn?

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What I envision as silly fun picking out the perfect pillow pet for my daughter, and anticipating the reaction I hope to get when I reveal its identity, quickly turns into a tirade of uncontrollable potty mouth, the likes of which I haven’t experienced since throwing down with the lactation specialist after she ripped the bag of frozen peas out from under my nightgown while insisting all good mothers breastfed, and that bottle fed children were deprived of important, and invaluable mother/child bonding (apparently nine months of living in my body wasn’t enough?).  I heard through the grapevine that the SIMILAC imprint on her forehead took weeks to fade.

At last count, there are over 20 different pillow pets on the market, but picking the one I want to buy is easy. “Silly Monkey” is definitely coming home with me.  As a little girl, my daughter loved monkeys, and chimps.  To this day she still laughs uncontrollably as she recalls the drive through safari trip at Great Adventure that resulted in a baboon urinating on the window of the car in front of us when the driver ran out of food he was feeding his hairy buddy.  Good times.

The potty mouth attack begins when I try to find Silly Monkey.  Let me break it down for you:  1st Stop – Target – 20 bumblebees, 20 puppies, 20 ladybugs, 0 monkeys;  2nd stop – Walmart – 20 bumblebees, 20 puppies, 20 ladybugs, 0 monkeys; 3rd stop – Kmart – 20 bumblebees, 20 puppies, 20 ladybugs.  Are you sensing a pattern?  I went to CVS, Walgreens, Kohl’s, Sears, Toys R Us, and JC Penny, and not a Silly Monkey in sight.  I start having flashbacks of Christmas shopping nightmares from years past, when I couldn’t find the beanie baby she needed to complete her set, or the pokemon pack that had the rarest card, or the million other things I swore if she didn’t find under the tree would scar her for life!  By the time I reach Walgreens, the expletives are rolling off my tongue as frequently as I blink – “If I wasn’t so (bleeping) gung ho about being the one to buy this (bleep), I wouldn’t be having this nervous breakdown right now!”; “OH NOOOOOO! I COULDN’T JUST GET THE (BLEEPING) LADYBUG!  I HAD TO GET ALL (BLEEPING) SENTIMENTAL, AND GET THE MONKEY!”; and, finally I reach the point of desperation – “God, if you let me find Silly Monkey, I promise to make good on all the other promises I made, and never kept.

I decide, after leaving JC Penny empty handed, feeling like a failure, to head over to Starbucks for a cup of a mocha, caramel, add 4 shots of espresso, vente sized something or other, and am stopped in my tracks.  Smiling right in front of my face, on a kiosk, like he has been patiently waiting for me all along, is SILLY MONKEY! The desperation prayer has worked, and I literally want to squeeze the living bleep out of him. I pluck down my $20, and my feet never touch the ground as I float to my car.  I call my daughter, and tell her to meet me at the house.  I can barely contain my exuberance as I run two steps at a time to reach my one and only, burst through the door of her bedroom, pull the torture companion out of the bag, and hold it up over my head. BEHOLD SILLY MONKEY!

“Oh, he’s cute,” my daughter says, as she barely looks up from the television. 

I stand there, monkey frozen over my head, thinking “CUTE?!  THAT’S IT?! HE’S THE MOST BLEEPING ADORABLE MONKEY ANY GIRL COULD HOPE FOR! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?  HE’S SO BLEEPING CUTE YOUR COACH IS GOING TO WANT TO ADOPT HIM!” 

“I’m glad you like him,” I say as I lower my arms, and throw the torture companion on top of the packing pile that sits on my daughter’s bed.  The day I take her to school, he is sitting on her pillow, and his smile is the last thing I see as I close the door to her room. 

As the memory of Silly Monkey, and my maniacal search for him begins to fade, I spot him at the bottom of a bin of mini pillow pets, beneath the bumblebees, ladybugs, and puppies.  As I dig him out, his smile brings me back to the last few moments I spent with my baby before saying goodbye.  I grin as I remember the sentimental moment I enjoyed when she first told me she wanted a pillow pet, and before she told me why.  It’s the first time I don’t cry thinking about my daughter.

“Hey, mom! Whatcha doing?”  It’s the middle of the day, and my daughter calls between classes.           

“I was just thinking about you,” I answer.

“Really?  We must have mental telepathy or something, huh?” she says with a laugh.

“Absolutely,” I reply. 

She tells me about her test, practices, and a few funny stories about the new friends she has made. It feels as if we’ve just begun our conversation when she has to run to her next class. We exchange I love you’s, talk to you laters, and it’s back to work.  But, before I return to what I was doing, I turn my chair around, reach up, remove Silly Monkey from my shelf, and give him a hug.  Everyday his smile is the first thing I see when I get to work, and the last thing I see when I leave.     

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