Stuffed Animal Folklore: It's a Whole Ne-ew World!

"Tubby little cubby all stuffed with fluff..." ~The Winnie-the-Pooh song

When I was young, I absolutely loved stuffed animals. My older brother and I amassed a collection of 70 or 80 before I turned 15. We called the whole group of them "The Gang," and divided them up into several crews ("the New Recruits," "The Great Mousefighters," "Snif-Snifs," "Jack's Crew," and, yes, the oh-so-creative "Remainder of the Gang"), each of which was governed by a crew leader. The crews would occasionally play board games and have mock fights against each other, though, to be fair, my brother and I would pre-determine the match by rolling the dice. We spent so much time developing our world of stuffed animals that we did develop it into a sort of high-context group between the two of us. Another member of the family could enter in the middle of a game or a conversation and not have a clue as to who was speaking to who, or what was going on.

This was because only my brother and I knew the names, voices, and personalities of all our animals. At one point I made a notebook with pictures and information on all the animals (unfortunately, it's long outdated by now). We also had three definite accents (unofficially labled "Swa," "Berst-berst," and "Hu") which we ascribed to the different characters. We also knew which pairs of animals were best friends, or "opposites," as we called them. It was a highly structured system; every time I got a stuffed animal, he usually got one, and vice versa.

In keeping with the typical governing laws of folklore, we came to identify certain phrases and accents with certain characters; even without hearing the accent, I'm willing to wager that my brother could immediately tell you which phrase goes with which stuffed animal/doll:

"All right, fellows - gather close!"

"Is that ice cream you're hiding behind your back?"

"Now we gotta think about this real carefully."

"You can fly, you can fly, you can fly, you can fly."

"Hu-u. I don't know about this, Richard. Hu-u."

"Ya-berst!"

"Sit-ups...and push-ups! Sit-ups...and push-ups!"

"1/4 of me thinks this is a baaaaaad idea."

How about it, siblings? Can anyone besides Daniel match the correct stuffed animal to the quote?

We had traditions for the proper caring of our stuffed animals as well. For a while, we used to sleep with all of our stuffed animals once a year, on Christmas Eve. That stopped when the numbers became too great, but it's still not uncommon to choose a select few animals to snuggle up with in the holiday season. Also, for a long time, both my brother and I used to pick an animal out of the closet each morning to be our "daily companion" for that day. It would join us as we did our schoolwork, as we played computer games, as we watched movies, and as we read books. My brother's daily companion might have even slept with him, but mine usually made its way back into the closet before bedtime, as I already had my Cabbage Patch baby doll, Nancy Potter (who, by the way, has an entirely different accent from any members of "The Gang"), to sleep with in bed. We've been inseparable bedmates since 1992, after all, and I wouldn't want to hurt her feelings.