Ever had a moment in your life where you catch a glimpse of something, or perhaps a whiff of a certain smell, or touched a certain fabric and suddenly you are thrown back several years into a memory you haven't even thought about in years?
This happens almost every time I go to my parents house to visit. I'll walk back to my old room, where I'll see some of my old stuffed animals. I'll move some stuff around either because I'm looking for something specific or I'm curious to see what stuffed animals are no longer there (Mom thinks she mischievous in giving away my stuff but I've noticed most of the time when something goes missing). Sometimes I would pick up a stuffed animal I had completely forgotten about and suddenly it was like going back in time. I could remember sitting in my room, playing with this specific toy on my old, ugly red carpet. I could even remember the story I had made up in my head while playing with that story.
My husband probably thinks I'm crazy because I had a back story for each of my stuffed animals. Most of them had a spouse, maybe a few kids and a certain place they liked to be in the room. The oldest of these stuffed animals, was a skunk I had originally named "Mr. Skunk" in my young age but it had molded to the name "Andrew" after a while. This skunk was actually a puppet. You could stick your hand inside, and control his little head and arms. He probably looks disgusting to most people since he's gone through the wash a lot. He has an old squeaker in his head that you used to be able to squeeze and it would make some sort of skunk sound. (Do they squeak?) Over the years it sort of just sounded like a puff of air when you pushed it.
Upon finding this skunk I could remember several different stories I had made for this skunk. During the time of General Conference, I would set up all of my animals as if they were in General Conference. My old style radio was the pulpit, and a stuffed frog had been President Gordon B. Hinckley. The skunk had been Elder Eyring. This says nothing about his smell or looks, that's just how it was.
I remembered a time when I made the skunk a girlfriend, a white flexible cat named Sassy. My sister and I would stick this cat in a ballet skirt of ours and have the two dance around to a certain song. (David Lanz - east of the moon).
At this same time in my life I created an occupation for the skunk. He was a journalist, with a type writer. Often he would type so fast that the type writer would blow up due to overcapacity of input.
He even had a best friend named Max, a dog that I once left outside and my real dog snatched it up and buried it in a hole of a tree that my dad had just pulled out. A few days later when my dad went to plant a new tree there, he found Max. He was a beautiful white fuzzy dog before, now he was a mud-dried disgusting creature. I cried a lot over this incident (I even made the skunk mourn over him) but then my mom stuck the dog, max, in the washer and dryer and poof! he was good as new. It was a miracle my real dog hadn't ripped him to pieces.
The point is, these memories sprouted from me seeing a little skunk tail sticking out from a toy box. Suddenly, I felt like I remembered my whole childhood. It was refreshing, and even stunning to remember how weird and brilliant I was as a child. The skunk remains my favorite stuffed animal.
