"Respired"

As you may recall during one of my first posts I commented on how cool I thought Webkinz were.
My opinion has changed.

Picture it: I'm sitting in my studio upstairs, and from upstairs you can hear anything and everything that's going on downstairs. I hear Mr. Simpleton say, "What's wrong, Garrett?". Then, I hear the unmistakable sound of sniffling (and I get that knot in my stomach because, as a mother, you know he just wiped his nose on his sleeve). My daughter, Abby, chimes in and explains that Garrett's froggie expired on Webkinz World. Daddy tries to console Garrett and eventually I hear Garrett ask him, "Dad, will you take me to mom?"

So, up the stairs they come. Garrett is sniffling loudly, obviously trying to dry it up before he gets to me. I pretend I haven't heard anything from downstairs and as he comes in I can tell he's fighting back fierce gigantic tears and trying to keep his throat from closing completely because of the knot in it. His face is tear streaked and his eyelashes are all clumped together.
"What's the matter, boy?" I ask.
He takes a deep breath and tries to talk but here comes that knot in his throat again. He swallows and opens his mouth to speak again when the corners of his mouth start to droop, his eyebrows narrow and crinkles begin to form on his frowning little chin. He puts his thumb and forefinger on his eyelids and pushes hard trying to prevent the tears from escaping and says to me in a tight shrill voice, "My Hip Hop respired!"
"It what?" I asked, unsure of exactly what he said.
"It respired!" he repeated.
lol.
I hugged my broken-hearted little man and explained that his froggie didn't expire or die but his website is just no longer running.
"But his eyeballs are scratched", he recanted at me through hiccupped breaths. (I'm assuming he was making the association that because of Hip Hop's scratched eyeballs, the Corporate Headquarters/Webkinz Wizard must have decided to "respire" him).
I totally flashed back to the Velveteen rabbit that I watched as a kid.
"That's what your stuffed animals like, buddy. That's how they know someone has loved them."
He nodded and a slight glint of happiness came back into his salt watery eyes.

So, I just want to know if the people at Webkinz World ever thought that it might be a cruel joke to give kids stuffed toys with websites that unknowingly expire in about a year? I wonder if they know how many broken-hearted little boys and girls there are out in the world because they woke up one morning and BAM! their best friend no longer has a personality on the web? I had no idea that's what happened and had I known I probably would have thought twice before buying the dumb thing. I don't know about you, but I was quite attached to my stuffed dolls as a little girl. Garrett's over it now but, man! Talk about the drama at our house for 2 days. Everywhere we went Garrett had to tell people about how his Webkinz "respired".
It's funny now, though.


Hip Hop Mason:
Adopted: March 10th, 2008
Respired: March 10th, 2009

Egg-cellent!

Ok, so it's almost spring, which means it's almost Easter, which means it's time for me to change my year-round Holiday Tree! What do you think? There's little easter stuffed pink and green bunnies, and big floral easter eggs with long pretty tassels, and pink glass ornaments, and pink, purple, blue and yellow feather clips and then I used pink and green curly gift bows for good measure. Here's how it turned out:




I Love Easter!

Lessons in Elementary Traffic School

Ok. I just have to know if my readers, wherever you may be located, have the same problem with after-school traffic that I do here in my hometown. Not just after-school traffic, but even the 7:30-8:00 a.m. traffic as well. 

I wonder...

 

Do you have the rude guy in a much too small but very pricey vehicle who cuts you off in the middle of the road nearly causing an accident just to wave his finger at you because you did something you didn't know you weren't supposed to do?

Do you have the business man who has to drive passed the school in the morning to get to work and, I guess since he didn't leave 5 minutes earlier, he's now late and probably talking to his boss on his cellphone asking him to move the meeting to 8:30 instead? When, lo and behold, it looks like he's going to let you in line! You jump at the chance to cut line from someone so generous. You even wave. 

But what's this? 

He's moving closer to your bumper at an alarmingly rapid rate. 

He stops just inches from your rear end and...is he...? 

Did he just...? He did! He just flipped you and your children off (not the kind of wave you were expecting in reciprocation). 

And from the color of his face he's on blood pressure meds, too. 

Or at least, he will be by this afternoon. 

Do you have the woman in the big truck who inevitably parks where she's not supposed to thus blocking anyone from going anywhere until she returns to her car, which is usually several minutes later?

Do you have the soccer dad in his '92 Buick who refuses to leave any less than 3 cars lengths between him and the car in front of him? You could turn into the parking lot if he'd move up just 5 feet. 3 feet, even! But nooooo. You have to wait for Super Slow Sally to get her kid in the car at the front of the line before he'll even think of moving up. 

Do you have the crazy just-got-off-duty police officer dad who parks next to you and when your children are safely secured in the car and you're trying to safely merge out into traffic he peels out recklessly in front of you speeding away as children blow the dust from their faces and dodge tiny pebbles being slung at them?

Do you have the mom in the minivan who will every day and without a doubt pretend to not see the people who are trying to back out of the parking lot, merge into traffic, or change lanes and by thus ignoring causes after-school traffic pandemonium?

Do you have Crazy Sweaty Lunatic Guy in the beat up old hunk of metal who obviously needs some kind of road rage rehabilitation program? He's the one who sits behind you in the line of parking lot traffic that's going no where (see reference to lady in minivan mentioned just prior) but thinks by inching closer to your back bumper and then coming to a jerking halt over and over and over again all while screaming out his window, "Geez!" and "Oh, come on!" and "I got places to be!" will somehow manage to inspire someone in line to let the freak out into traffic with the rest of us.

Do you have the grandma that apparently has a neck problem because she can't look anywhere but straight when she's driving and you pray you don't get behind her in line only because you don't want to see her get pummeled by oncoming traffic?

Do you have the lady that you let out of the parking lot nearly everyday and never once waves or smiles any form of gratitude in your general direction?   

Do you have the impatient mom with 4 kids who has been sitting in a line that has gone no where for 15 minutes so she decides to jump the curb to get to a parking spot and get her children who are, by the way, the last ones to be picked up in their class because traffic was stalled for so long?

Oh, wait. 

That's ME! 

Besides the last one, if you guys don't have any one of these people in your area, you can have ours!