Childhood trauma...

Yesterday we got to celebrate my niece's first birthday. One of her gifts was a cute, cuddly teddy bear. This started a conversation about not cute, cuddly toys. My husband's family has this really creepy story about a talking Pooh Bear toy that used to talk with or without batteries and seemed to know to say "bye bye" as you were leaving the house.

If you are reading this, Sis, you will most certainly think of either: Mary, or that awful monkey doll. What is it about dolls that can be so creepy. Already the boys have one or two stuffed animals that I just don't like. 

We had this "life-sized" doll, Mary, when we were little. She was just a little too life-sized and she just bothered us a little. Indeed, when we recently found out that Mary is still up in my parents' attic somewhere, we were appalled. Our cousins had a matching doll, but blond, like them, named Susan, I think. Didn't much care for Susan either. 

But the best is this random little monkey (I think it was a monkey) doll that my grandmother gave to my sister, when she was in fourth or fifth grade. My sister, who, to be fair, was (still is?) a touch dramatic and read Stephen King books for fun - in her basement bedroom (the bedroom that had an attachment to the closet that led to an unlit storage room under the stairs) - at night - by herself, just didn't like it. She put it in her pile of stuffed animals in the corner of her room, but always felt as if it were watching her. She shared with the rest of the family her dislike for the thing, but we ignored her. One day, right before we all left the house for something or other, she took the stupid thing, put it on the very bottom of her stuffed animal pile and made sure that no part of it was visible. I guess it made her feel better. Until she came home from the family outing to find it on TOP of the pile of dolls. This was too much, and of course no one believed her so she just insisted that she no longer wanted the doll. By this time, the fact that she didn't like the doll had be relayed back to my grandma, and she took opportunity with the rest of us in making fun of my sister for that. So my mom took the "poor thing" that had been abandoned by my sister. Mom made it maybe four days and said she no longer wanted it in the house. Grandma, exasperated, and probably a little stung, insisted she would take it back. It lasted no more than a week with Grandma before she threw it in the garbage. It's lived on in our family stories. Ahhh, memories... ;)

K, Hollywood makes whole series of movies about evil dolls, and isn't there really a Stephen King novel about one? Can't remember, as I wouldn't dare read a Stephen King novel (I get scared watching "Mater and the Ghost Light," and I just ruined the next couple nights' rest by reading the Wikipedia account of the book, It). What is that? It bet nearly all of you (two or so :)) readers have accounts of dolls that were just "off." Why? Was it our childhood imaginations getting the best of us? Or do we find a little fun in silly stories like this? 

Not my usual posting of darling pics of my boys. But it just had me thinking. Tell me some of your stories, so I can be freaked out in my well-lit, doll-less office for fun today. :)