My office has gone crazy for Beanie Babies. And not merely Beanie Babies, but the new Teeny Beanie Babies as well. I am struggling not to give in to the urge to collect them but it's hard, sister, it's hard.
I had a couple of Beanie Babies already but they were given to me, I swear. I think the first one I got was in 1995. John came home from a business trip and gave me an armadillo, the nine-banded one. I cut off its tag so I don't remember the name. The cats like to play with it, and it's pretty battered by now, but for a long time it sat on top of my computer. A year or so later, John gave me Velvet, the black cat, because it looked liked our black cat Keiko when she stretches out on the floor. It was fun to have yet another stuffed animal in the house but I didn't particularly care that it was a Beanie Baby. The fact is I liked them, but I knew they were considered collectibles, and I have no love for being suckered into buying the latest, greatest thing. So I didn't go out and buy any myself. Just in case Velvet turned out to be valuable, though, I left her tag on.
When we moved back to California in October, 1997, some friends' children brought us Batty the Bat as a housewarming gift. He is rather nifty with his little velcro bat wings, and the cats like him almost as much as the armadillo, especially when I make him "fly." I was interested to find out the Beanie Babies came in non-traditional shapes such as bats. Maybe they had a Beanie Komodo Dragon, or a Beanie Carpenter Ant. I even thought about buying some more after getting Batty, but you know what stopped me? I didn't know where to get them. What can I say, I never go to toy stores -- if indeed they have them at toy stores. Frankly, I'd never noticed where they were sold. I was a Beanie Baby naif.
Not any more. Oh, no, not any more. Now I work at Beanie Central. We are bonkers for Beanies.
We are on the Internet all day long checking our collections against the latest listings. We go to McDonald's morning, noon, and night, roaming the Peninsula by the carload to purchase every single available Teeny Beanie Baby currently being offered with Happy Meals. Happy Meal hamburgers are piling up in our refrigerator as a result; no one wants the food, we want Bongo, Scoop, and Mel! We mercilessly grill anyone who admits they collect them to find out if they have something we are willing to buy, trade, or steal. And we are shameless about our neediness, let me tell you. I confess to being amazed by it. I've never worked with such avid collectors before.
I, however, am not collecting them. There is not enough money in my bank account to permit the useless acquisition of beanbag animals. This is not to say I don't have any stuffed animals at work. On my computer I have my Dilbert doll sitting next to Spike, who is sitting next to Paddington Bear, who is leaning against a purple octopus. I didn't buy Spike, he was given to me by a co-worker, honest. And yeah, okay, I bought two Teeny Beanie Babies, I admit, but I ate the damned Happy Meals they arrived in. That doesn't count as collecting, surely. I mean, I can't be a collector. I don't do collecting. It's just that everyone around me is buying them, and they're so cute, and they might be worth something someday, just like my old comics that my mom tossed out.
Help me.
