"I'm past that stage," Cortney assured me with a sophisticated toss of her head. "I'm not," Elizabeth countered.
And
she isn't. She likes Barbie dolls, but has never cared much for baby dolls, although my mother has insisted on buying her one each Christmas. And, no matter how beautiful the baby doll was when first received,
within five minutes it was stripped naked and had hair that looks like mine does first thing in the morning. Eventually Elizabeth tired of stripping baby dolls and graduated to stripping Barbies. While Barbies are
smaller, they can be rendered just as ratty-looking as the big ones. It's a hobby she enjoys to this day.
But, although she likes dolls, she's never developed a real attachment to one. In fact, neither of my
kids have cared much for stuffed animals, either, except for a mercifully brief Barney run by my son. I was made of much different stuff.
When I was very small, my Uncle Zane gave me a teddy bear and I loved it
with a blinding passion. I took it everywhere I went and, well, when I went, the bear was always there. Poor bear. I was a bed wetter until I was about 10. And this was back in the days before all the cunning little
paper pants that keep kids dry until they're nearly in high school. When I wet the bed, I wet the bed and everything in it. Which is why my beleaguered parents used to climb out of their beds in the middle of the night
and take their children to the bathroom, a ploy that didn't always work where I was concerned.
Modern psychologists will say that's the wrong thing to do. But to two young parents who found themselves changing
beds on a daily basis, it was their only defense. In fact, I remember one night when my sleepy father stood me up and pointed me toward the bathroom. Only after a moment had passed did he realize, to his utter horror,
that I'd turned the opposite direction of the bathroom and headed to the living room, where I'd seated myself quite nicely on the sofa.
So, unfortunately for the teddy bear whenever the middle of the night ploy
didn't work, the bear got it. Hence his name: "Stinky Bear". And old Stinky Bear was my bedraggled, odiferous constant companion in life. Where I went, he went and when I went...well, you get the picture.
I know
Mom took Stinky Bear apart and washed him and I don't think he fared very well. I remember him looking black and white one day and kind of tan the next. But old Stinky's run finally came to an end one day quite by
accident when I put him near the garbage cans and the trash collector took him. It was a black day for me when old Stinky disappeared in the back of that garbage truck. And it took me a long time to get over it.
Although, come to think of it, it was a pretty fitting way for him to go. After sleeping with me for a couple of years, the back of that garbage truck was probably a breath of fresh air.
Which just goes to show
that the air on the other side of the fence actually might smell a little bit sweeter, depending, of course, on one's perspective.
