The Great Dog Saga

Once upon a time, I received a book and audio cassette bundle for my birthday. Then, I opened another present a few minutes later that contained the exact same thing. I think this was my 5th birthday. ANYWAY, I was allowed to return one of them to the Kmart from whence it came, and as some sort of lesson about the value of money, I was only allowed to buy something with the refund money that was the same value. While this was a good learning opportunity and I totally see where my parents were coming from… they had no way of knowing what they had done. 

Being 5 (and being me), I wandered through the toy section to pick something out, and I found the first plush version of one of the puppies from the cinematic masterpiece that is Beethoven's 2nd that I had ever seen.  I needed it. I needed it more than anything else in the entire world. (We didn't have a dog yet, which was what I REALLY wanted, but I spent the first 7.5 years of my life being placated with plush dogs instead, which is what got me into this whole stuffed animal business in the first place...) But sadly, it was more expensive than my limit of money, so we left without it. It was also, and this is the important part, the only one on the shelf. 

After that, I didn't want to spend my money on anything else except this puppy, and I hoped that maybe another store would carry it at a lower price. In the pre-internet Stone Age, the only way to find this out was to go to all the stores and look. So, that's what we did. Over something like a $5 difference, my parents ended up driving all over the place and calling every toy store looking for this puppy. No success. No one else had any of the puppies.  It was starting to look like I had stumbled on the last one left in the city. (And now it makes sense-- we were trying to shop in Fall 1994 for a toy from a movie that was released in December 1993).  Eventually, it was agreed that we would just go back to the first Kmart and buy it because this quest was ridiculous, but when we went back, it was gone. When we did find one of the other puppies at another store later, we bought it immediately. However, the memory of the one that was impossible to find basically haunted us all. When we went to Universal Studios a full 2 years later, and found a version of Dolly, we bought her on sight. 

Universal Studios Dolly

When my sister left the country, she brought me back a vaguely St. Bernard-looking plush puppy, and vaguely tried to pass it off as the international version of the puppy I still wanted.  For another Christmas, a puppy that was clearly some sort of spaniel was given to me, with the logic that it looked sort of like the missing puppy.

This is totally a St. Bernard, right?

Of course, now I have 2 of the 3 plush puppies from that line (Kenner!) thanks to Ebay. So, it's not really about the puppy anymore. …Though it does upset me that they never produced the 4th puppy ( poor Chubby). What I did get from this saga is twofold; a love/hate obsession with the QUEST aspect of finding the "holy grail" toys… which often makes the hunt for the object more fun than actually owning it, and more perilous to my wallet, a massive paranoia about deciding not to buy something and having it then disappear FOREVER. 

Still no Mo. SOMEDAY!

And that fear, dear readers, is how you end up buying 7 Zelfs in 1 week.