Readers do you remember Furbies, like the original furbies from the nineties? My oldest wanted one super bad when they first came out. She put it on her Christmas list and Birthday list and Easter list and she thought she would try a memorial day list just in case that was a gift holiday. Yes, she wanted one and they were expensive and I don’t like expensive, so she didn’t get one from me. However on her Birthday she got this gift from her Aunt and Uncle that hate me I think.

The day of her party the gift was sitting in the corner and whenever it was moved it said some muffled thing. We had a possessed toy train incident and so we were ready to ditch this gift right from the start. When  she finally opened it we could make out this toy’s words and it was saying “Ooooh! Furby scared!”

I immediately feel bad for the poor thing because it was turned on before it was wrapped and the poor little thing was frightened. This Furby was pastel colors and it had blinking eyes and a beak and I too was in love with the Furby. My daughter was finished unwrapping after she got her Furby, even though there was a mound of gifts still left. One of her guests (friends) said she would hold Furby while the birthday girl opened the rest. My daughter weighed her options and that was going to be a negative. She held her Furby while she unwrapped the gifts. She really didn’t care about anything anyone else gave her. She was content with Furby and she was finished with the party because her guests wanted to hold her Furby and touch her Furby and look in the general direction of Furby with larceny in their hearts  and that was going to have to be a no for her. She walked around holding her Furby and like a new parent, didn’t want anyone getting their germs and failure on her toy.

So, for those of you that don’t know what a Furby is, it is a mechanical toy that teaches kids that they are irresponsible and shouldn’t own live things like pets or small children. It also works as birth control for the parents because we are the ones that have to actually take care of the fucking thing. Good thing I thought it was cute because I was up all night feeding it. This is the type of toy that when, inevitably the battery dies everyone cheers and goes on with their real life. This toy was in our home with dead batteries in it for years. We move to another location and Furby comes along in a box buried deep. My youngest was one when we moved and she didn’t have any recollection of the Furby days when everyone was trapped by the demands of this adorable robot.

Flash forward a few years and my youngest was the only one home with me when the other two are at school. I take her downstairs to look through some of these boxes (yes they sat for a few years with me not really opening them, or caring too, for that matter) and seeing what things we had down there. My youngest daughter finds Furby and she falls in love with it. She is playing with Furby and it is keeping her quiet and happy and that makes me quiet and happy. I am able to search through the boxes and deeming that some of this stuff is actual garbage and why did I ever pack this maternity bra with the stretch out elastic? Apparently I had another use for it like slinging watermelons over my shoulder or pumpkin chunking and I packed it up for the next home for my inspiration to hit.

I look at my little one dressing her Furby in doll clothes and I say “Are you ready to go for our walk?”

We would walk every day and then collect the other two off of the school bus. She wants to take Furby in a dress and I am so cool with this. It is Fall and we made a scarecrow for our house for Halloween and she also takes that everywhere as a doll too. I put her in her stroller and hand her the Furby and the scarecrow and we head out for our walk. She is telling me that she doesn’t like the name Furby and she was going to name it Charlene. I don’t know where the name Charlene comes from but hey its a solid name choice and we keep walking. She had already named the scarecrow Tilda and so Charlene and Tilda are the names and our life is great. The sky was a perfect blue and the leaves are an amazing color contrast and I was breathing in the fall air when someone says something.

I look at my little one and I say “Did you say something?” She looks up with those big blue eyes and she is terrified.

I ask “What’s wrong?”

She has a raspy voice and it is so absolutely perfect for the teeny tiny face with the huge baby-blues that it comes out of, and she says “Charlene said it.”

I was like “what?”

“Charlene said it!” I see that she is now repelling Charlene like a hot potato and I am one to not litter so I pick up Charlene and I am now forced to carry Furby once again.

That’s when Charlene starts to shake and say things but these things sound like a Beetle’s record being played backwards and it scares the fuck out of me. This toy also is getting hot in my hands and so I am now freaking out.  I am not a good mom when I am terrified. I am more of a “all man for himself” mom when I am at that level of scared. I take the Furby and I drop kick that sucker right into the dingle. I look at the Furby and I look at my daughter and she is pointing at the Furby with her tiny little finger and she is saying “Bad, Bad Furby! You are Not Charlene!”

I then see this toy bubble under the surface and I think ‘Do I go in after it? What do I do?’ So I decide that I should pick it up out of the dingle, except when I go down to get it my baby girl starts to cry. “Leave it there! Leave it there! Lets leave mommy!”

I can’t knowingly leave this toy to plague the dingle but my little girl is so afraid of it that I can’t go in and get it. My thought is that I am going to just get my kids off of the bus and take them home and then I will sneak down and get it. We get the kids off of the bus and my little one is all excited about her story and she is telling her brother and sister. (When they have no idea what the hell she is talking about they have a token statement to affirm that they are listening and it is “That’s nice!”)

However her story wasn’t nice and she gets more and more excited telling it. She is breathless and explaining it and it sounds a bit like this “Then Frurby is bad and not Charlene and now he lives in the dingle and it is now a monster.”

My two older kids are thinking about what snack to have when they get home and not at all understanding the story and think that she saw it on tv. She is exasperated because this is real life and that possessed Furby bit mommy and is now a monster. I have to sneak out of the house but she won’t let me because she is traumatized. I finally get her settled down for her nap and I sneak out to get that damn toy and when I get out there I see some Amish kids fishing this toy out of the swampy mess of a dingle. They are so Impressed with their find that they are talking and walking away with it. I had two options that I could think of at the time.

One I could say “That toy actually belongs to me and I was going to throw it away because it has embodied a demon whilst on my walk today.” which makes me look like a lunatic.

Or Two just let them be happy with their find until the thing starts talking to them like Satan and then they are on their own.

That one.

The last one!

Do not judge me. I don’t know the Amish beliefs. I don’t know what magic powers they have. I don’t know how they live in the real world with no electricity. So maybe this Furby was good for them. Maybe they stripped it for parts and made a really cool hat out of it? You don’t know either so stop judging me.

I watch the Amish walk away with the possessed Furby that was named Charlene for a day and I slept soundly ever since. Saved by the dingle once again. Thanks Dingle you are the best. Plus your name is Dingle which will always bring me joy.

Moral of my story: Toys shouldn’t come to life on purpose because how will we know when to be alarmed if it isn’t when dolls come to life. Oh and for the record this is still not even the last of dolls come to life stories you will read on here. Be prepared for the next one which will be later this week or next. Also you don’t know what joy that Furby brought to the Amish home. That could have been the best possessed thing they ever had.

Until next time:)