Mousie

Al had a mousie that he loved as a kid. Couldn’t go to sleep without it kind of thing. It never got too weird; outgrew it at an appropriate age if memory serves. Somehow mousie survived in the cubby space up above the closet amongst an unbelievably dusty assortment of forgotten items like an old elephant bank with a broken trunk, a reel movie projector with no reels, a toy that fired tiny missiles from its abdomen, random Battleship game pegs, a bra, an empty VO whisky bottle, carpet samples, an empty Kamchatka vodka bottle, a lamp with small teardrop crystals of which eight of ten were missing, dentures (top), and wallet sized school pictures of all of the kids, for well over 10 years when he was rediscovered by Al. And when Al saw mousie he beamed and was wistful and comedic about ole mousie. “Mousie, oh my goodness!” he delighted. “Looks like someone had the stuffing beaten out of him,” he quipped, as mousie was open in more than a few places.  After a thorough dusting Al surveyed mousie and got to work stitching him up. We all thought it was for prosperity’s sake, the stitching, but we soon came to realize that Al wanted mousie, kinda, all over again. Al was now 18 years old, a freshman in college, with a girlfriend, a job, a car, friends, and again, mousie. Mousie was suddenly present on dates, at sporting events, the study cubicle at the university library, the work desk, hanging from the gym bench press bar, and at the end of the day in bed with Al. Exactly how this came about is anyone’s guess. The family was so, so perplexed, they didn’t even know how to raise the issue…that an 18 year old, well (enough?) adjusted young man, now had a woobie name mousie. Was it a joke, a test, something for YouTube, an experiment for some psych class??? Did he have some sort of break; was he going through a dissociative fugue like the kind he presented on in his psych class?  If this was some sort of regression, what was next, a pacifier? Well before the family ever had the chance to have some sort of woobie intervention, Al became a crack addict so the whole thing was moot.