Guest Blogger: Snuggy

A picture on Facebook has some of my friends and family wondering what happened to my childhood security blanket, Snuggy.

I lost Snuggy somewhere on the road in the summer of 1995. It took some doing, but Snuggy has been tracked down and has agreed to be my guest blogger today.

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My creator was an old lady known as Gee Gee Mom. This sweet little great grandmother knit myself and many blankets like me for her family. She was so kind and gentle, knitting me with love for the child I was to be given to. It was a quiet, peaceful time, sitting on her lap, growing a square or two a day, enjoying her voice, the smells of the house, soap, perfume, cookies.

I was so proud when I was finally finished, ready to serve the child I was made for.

My excitement turned to horror when I learned what a child actually was. The child I now belonged to, this Crissy, was not like my lovely Gee Gee at all. Oh no. She was a rotten little thing. A loud, dirty, smelly troll. She named me Snuggy.

She dragged me everywhere. She used me as a blanket for this awful thing she called Helena, a terrifyingly ugly doll she also loved. She put me on the dog. She brought me outside an lay me in the dirt. She wiped her nose on me, she peed on me, she threw up on me.

Gone were the pretty smells of Gee Gee's house. Now I smelled like a farting wet dog. And my filthy master would scream and yell at her Mommy as I was pried out of her slimy hands to have a bath. Crissy hated how I smelled when I was clean and dirtied me up as fast as she could.

Just look at her if you can stand it. She couldn't even put me down to eat some damn ice cream. I'm sure I ended up with some on me, and she didn't care. She was a heartless brat.

I needed to get away from her. I didn't care how, I knew I couldn't live like this forever. I thought maybe I could smother her in her sleep, her mother wouldn't miss her, she had five other monsters running around. But no, Gee Gee knit me with big enough holes, that not matter how tightly I wrapped myself around her head, Crissy could still breathe.

I waited patiently for her to leave me somewhere. Sooner or later she'd forget me at a the playground, or drop me in a store, or leave me at Grandma and Grandpa's house right? Not so lucky. She was not letting me out of her sight.

I knew that sooner or later, she'd outgrow me. And things did get better for me as Crissy grew. She stopped dragging me everywhere, and let me hang out in her bed most days. She smelled better as she grew too. She stopped pooping and peeing her pants, and she liked it when I smelled clean.

I looked forward to Crissy leaving for college, for surely she would not be bringing me up to Canada. She would want to impress her new friends, and how would she do that with a blanket named Snuggy?

Oh, how wrong I was. I went to college with her and the bad smells returned. Crissy, who now was being called Creepy, liked to drink so, again with the throw up. And a new, unfamiliar smell followed her around now, like cigarette smoke, but stronger. It was worse than ever, and there was no Mommy person to clean me. I had my last bath in the summer of 1991.

During her last year of college, I heard Creepy making plans to go travelling with some friends. She was getting rid of most of her belongings, only keeping what fit in a duffel bag. She was going on a long trip and would be living in a van. She wouldn't have room for me. The end was finally in sight, I would go back to our old home, the Mommy would bathe me and put me on a bed and leave me alone.

To my horror, in May of 1995, I was stuffed in a backpack and carried onto a '71, electric blue VW bus named Stella. Creepy and her friends, Skip and Jim hit the road in Toronto and drove for weeks and weeks, stopping every day or so to sit outside the van and feed people grilled cheese sandwiches.

It was worse than when Crissy was a small child. I spent most of my days on the ground, being stepped on by disgusting bare feet, getting butter wiped on me, coffee spilled on me... The smells I absorbed from living in that van were unbearable. I was back to being the farting wet dog, who now had B.O.

One night, at a campground outside St. Louis, Creepy and her friends were holed up in the van while a violent thunderstorm raged outside. They didn't seem to mind, for some reason everything made these idiots laugh.

A few hours into the storm there was a commotion outside. A hundred or so campers had saught shelter from the storm on and under the porch of a lodge at the campground. There were too many people on the porch and it collapsed, injuring many people below, some seriously.

Dozens of police cars and ambulances drove by us. People started coming by the van asking if we had anything that could be used to help the victims. Skip offered up a blanket of hers. I felt bad for the poor people that had been hurt, but I was so glad that I was finally going to get away from Crissy; surely she would want to help someone in need and offer up my services.

I knew she was evil, but was shocked when she wouldn't give me up. Sure I was small, but I could give some comfort to a poor wet soul no?? No. That cold-hearted bitch refused to let me go.

That was the last straw. I was going to get away from her if I had to throw myself in a fire.

One beautiful sunny day, I think we were in New Jersey, I was in a heap outside the van as usual, on the ground behind Crissy, Skip, and a small furry beast they called Gromley.

They didn't notice the group of similarly dressed and smelly freaks that wandered by the van. One of these folks was wearing a pair of tattered leather sandals, again with the stink, but I didn't mind, because this particular shoe had a big tear in the cork which got snagged on me as the wearer stumbled by. I wasn't dragged very far before I was shaken off. While freeing me from the shoe, the shoe itself got kicked off and the owner who didn't seem to notice kept right on walking.

The shoe and I looked at each other, then looked around. We were under a van, near Stella, but out of sight of Crissy and her pack of smelly buddies. The shoe missed its mate, but was happy to be free from the foot.

Shoe ( I never did catch its name) and I kept very quiet and still, hoping that Stella would move before our cover did. She did. I watched with glee as she pulled away, taking Crissy with her, forever.

After the parking lot was empty, a group of people came through with big brooms and bags to clean the mess. An old man tossed Shoe in a bag, and almost tossed me in too. He hesitated, looked me over, gave me a sniff and a shrug of his shoulders, and tucked me in his belt.

He brought me home to his wife, who gave me my first bath in years. She put me at the end of a small bed in a room full of toys and dolls. A few times a year, a child will come and stay the night, I will get cuddled, I'll be placed in a doll's cradle, sometimes I'll get a little dirty and need a bath.

Since I've been here, I've never met a child as rotten as Crissy. They are getting less frequent, but I still have the nightmares. I wonder if the Old Man and his Wife can hear me screaming.