Way back in the day, I am talking 2006 – I vividly remember feeling pure excitement when the opportunity arose to purchase another Webkinz. Now, for those of you who don’t know what Webkinz are – let me explain.

Webkinz are small, plush stuffed animals that were generally sold in speciality shops such as Limited Too, now known as Justice, and Hallmark Stores – all across the United States. With this small stuffed animal, came with an access code to be used on the Webkinz website.

This majestic website was the virtual home of your animal. Here, your plush animal came to life and had to be fed every day, and given a comfortable room to sleep in. In order for my Webkinz to have enough food, I had to go to the grocery store and purchase food with my Kinz Cash in order to have my stuffed animals feeling their very best.

Each and every day, immediately following the completion of my school day, I ran to the nearest computer to log on to my Webkinz account to participate in the daily deals in order to obtain the most goodies for my animals.

Now, to say the least my obsession with these small, plush, and virtual animals was over-the-top. I remember the first day of owning a Webkinz. My family and I had just finished dinner at Cracker Barrel and luckily, the shopping mall was right next door. I had been begging for a couple of weeks, to jump on the Webkinz band-wagon that my friends had been telling me about.

I purchased the small, French bulldog and went home to register him, online – as soon as I could. My small collection of a few Webkinz, quickly grew to cover the space of my entire twin bed.

Not only were these animals, super cool and swaggy at the time, I also gained a sense of responsibility. Every day, I had to clean, feed, and play with my animals to ensure that they were well taken care of. I had multiple animals, and did everything in my power to make sure they were well taken care of.

Although, this senseless act of purchasing a stuffed animal seemed ridiculous at the time – I am forever thankful for the responsibility that these stuffed animals gave to me.