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Broke Wife, Big City
Ever get that
feeling you’re being watched?
By Aprill Brandon
My son’s current favorite toy is a stuffed dog. A stuffed dog that
talks. And sings. And lights up. And requests in a bit too perky of a
voice that you hug it. A lot. Like, a lot a lot.
And I’m pretty sure it’s trying to kill me.
Oh sure, maybe you could chalk up my paranoia to watching one too many
demented child’s toy-themed horror movies or too many late nights
falling asleep to “The Twilight Zone” reruns (yes, I’m old, shut up).
But the evidence is mounting.
And I’m pretty sure it’s only a matter of time now.
It started out innocently enough. Riker would be playing with Creepy
Dog (as I’ve taken to calling it) and when he was done, I’d push the
button on its foot that turned it off. Three minutes later, there was
Creepy Dog, sitting beside us on the couch, perkily telling us “IT’S
LEARNING TIME!” and then requesting that we hug it.
It must have accidentally turned on when I adjusted my legs on the
couch, I pathetically told myself.
Things were fine for awhile (like they are in every single horror movie
I’ve ever seen). And then Creepy Dog turned on by itself again. Only
this time, no one had been playing with it for hours and it was lying
(creepily) by itself on the coffee table. “I love you!” it said. “Can
you and I be friends?” it said. And then it firmly told us that we
should hug it.
OK, OK, sure. Maybe those two incidences can be explained by faulty
manufacturing or science or whatever. But before you cart me off to the
looney bin, just read what happened next.
A few days later, I was in the bedroom, rocking my baby to sleep. He
had just drifted off when suddenly I hear “IT’S LEARNING TIME!”
followed by a stupid song about colors, followed by “I love you!”
followed by another stupid song about shapes or some junk, followed by
a DEMAND that we hug it. And worst of all…
…it was coming from INSIDE THE HOUSE!
Well, obviously. But more importantly, it was coming from inside the
living room.
And we were in the bedroom. Me. The baby. The dog. All piled on the bed
together. Even that damn fly that has been living in our house the past
five months that I can never seem to squish was chilling on the bedroom
wall.
And if none of that is enough to convince you, the above Creepy Dog
monologue/karaoke show was followed by the phrase “PEEKABOO! I SEE
YOU!”, repeated no less than seven times in a row.
I craned my around the bedroom door and damn if I didn’t see Creepy Dog
staring right back at me, sitting up (creepily) on a chair in the
living room. A chair I don’t remember leaving him in.
Granted, my memory isn’t the most reliable these days (I lost my house
keys for eight months and found them two weeks ago in, get this, my
purse…I may also leave a disproportionate amount of Riker toys in the
fridge and leftover chili in the toy basket, but whatever). Still,
there’s a good 14 percent chance I did not leave Creepy Dog in that
chair (now if I found him in the fridge, that would be a different
story).
Anyway, the moral of the story is that if I’m ever murdered, Creepy Dog
did it.
Can’t get enough of Aprill? Can’t wait until next week?
Check out her website at http://aprillbrandon.com/
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