I Will Sleep With Your Favorite Childhood Stuffed Animal, And This Is How It Will Happen

I will meet you somewhere extravagant. Target. At a matinee showing of a Tyler Perry movie. Applebee’s happy hour.

I will be hideous. Sweatpants. A Hot Cheeto dust decorated sweatshirt. Cushiony slippers that are defying the limits of ugly, but incredibly comfortable, just like my welcoming wink that says “’Sup?” Lately you’ve been overwhelmed with your significant other and YouTube and Netflix – you slipped up on cuddling and being adorable with your favorite blankey or doll or whatever it is you used to bring to bed every night.

Your stuffed creature is not a bad person, heck, it’s not a person at all, stupid. You’ve grown busy and stuff collects dust after a while. I’ll befriend you, suggest a hangout and get the address of your home that I’ll eventually break into. The first time I touch your prized possession my hand will smell, probably of stale funk if you haven’t washed this thing in years, but hopefully it wears the aroma of Tide Lavender or something.

When you talk to me at the Target or Tyler Perry movie or Applebee’s you will notice how insanely friendly I’m being. What once was a mere acquaintanceship is suddenly being forced into an undying bond. You think it’s incredibly odd that I so desperately want to be a third wheel with you and your boyfriend/girlfriend, but based on my physical appearance you assume life has been cruel to my red fingerprint covered sweater and I. Spoiler alert, I don’t actually want to hang, I just needed the location of your most sentimental belonging.

When I go back to your apartment everything will be rummaged through. I’ll check your pantry for cereal that I can shovel dry scoops of into my mouth, then I’ll open the refrigerator for any type of sports drink because I want electrolytes before I have my way with your cherished, inanimate object. You’re at your significant other’s home – at least I hope so because how awkward would it be if you came home right now?

I’ll enter your bed and it’ll be there waiting. Your sewed, stitched treasure in my hands, arms, mouth, nose? It’s so soft and I can see why you got attached at a very young age, I mean really, it’s actually making a ton of sense. I’ll stroke the polyester fibers and run my fingers along the seams, I’ll poke at it’s button or glass eyes and know that if Toy Story is even a little bit true, your childhood night time companion is enjoying this more than I am.

I will become super concerned about the thing’s eyes though, because they aren’t fastened in and had one come loose when you were a kid it would’ve certainly been a choking hazard. Anyway, I’m going to take your stuffed mate home with me and we’ll sleep together every night over the next few weeks. Your neglect will be evident when you eventually come home from your significant other’s place and don’t even notice that the stuffed animal you used to love is missing. Sure, that probably has a lot to do with the fact that your attention will be grabbed by the glass-covered floor from the window I had to shatter to gain entry, but still.

This stuffed doll is better off without you.

I will sleep with it by reminding it that it’s not alive, so it can’t like, move or decide not to sleep with me, and I will lose it by constantly talking out loud to a stuffed object and getting caught by someone who reports me to the police who take me into custody and get me psychiatric care. In the end, I am just an owner who took the somewhat realistic features of a doll too seriously. I will sleep with it as a hobgoblin and I will lose it as a psychopath.