The Tragic Tale of the Monkey Snuggie

Reid has a number of little blankies that help him to sleep or sometimes just to chill out. We call them snuggies after his tendency to snuggle up to them. He's not particular about any specific one, so for the sake of variety he's acquired about five different ones over his lifetime: a lion, a horse, a frog, a giraffe, and of course, a monkey. Here he is cozying up to his frog and giraffe snuggies.




On Halloween, we took Reid trick-or-treating for the first time. We left the house, our little monkey Reid with his beloved monkey snuggie clutched firmly in hand. Unfortunately, when we returned home I couldn't locate the monkey snuggie but he's always leaving them all over the house so I figured I'd find it somewhere.

So off to bed Reid went with a couple of his other snuggies and we dealt with trick-or-treaters for the rest of the night. I hadn't dressed up, as we'd had a busy day and I wasn't inspired enough to put my Nurse Gore costume together. But then Ted reminded me of my super-duper all-purpose-easy-on-easy-off-spookywear that I wear almost every year in anticipation of trick-or-treaters that we've never had until this year. It was getting late, but I ran to my Halloween chest of fun and donned the scary get-up.

And then I waited. It was getting late, but I hoped for just one more trick-or-treater. And I got two! A teenage couple rang the doorbell, a princess of some sort and a scary goblin type. As I made my way to the door I giggled in giddy anticipation of how scared they would be when I answered the door and they were greeted by this:

It worked! They looked genuinely alarmed. Frightened even! I smirked beneath my dark black mask. I could see them but they couldn't see me - teehee! Oh, how I love Halloween. So without speaking a word - because it's scarier that way - I slowly reached my hand into the candy bowl and went to drop it into the princess's pumpkin candy container...and then, I saw it. But no, it couldn't be! Could it? But it was (I think). A monkey snuggie curled up in her pumpkin!

I started to inquire about it...really, I almost did. But I was in character! I was scary! And asking "Excuse me, but is that a monkey snuggie you have there?" would have been decidedly unspooky. Why would she have Reid's monkey snuggie anyway? Maybe it was her own monkey snuggie and I had no right to take it from her. And what if it wasn't a monkey snuggie at all? What if my eyes were playing tricks on me through that hazy mask? What if I just looked like a foolish middle-aged lady in a stupid black mask and cape asking about a monkey snuggie that wasn't even a monkey snuggie?

Please understand that this all happened very fast and these thoughts went through my head pretty quickly. I was very confused. Then I shut the door, turned slowly and said to Ted, "I think she might have had Reid's monkey snuggie..." And then it came to me in a rush as I realized that he must have dropped it on the sidewalk, and she must have picked it up somewhere out there and dropped it into her little pumpkin. And in that moment, I knew that I should have ripped off my mask (spookiness be damned!) and done everything in my power to reclaim my son's beloved monkey snuggie. But it was too late. They were off down the street by now.

And then the self-doubt set in. Why didn't I put aside my vanity in the pursuit of spookiness and fight for my son's monkey snuggie? What is wrong with me? And how can I make it right? Should I replace it with a new monkey snuggie the way mothers everywhere sneak a new goldfish in the bowl when the old one dies? Or would he know the difference when he didn't smell his slobber on it? What kind of mother am I? Will he need therapy for this? Do I need therapy for this?

I guess only time will tell what the effects of this experience will be on all of us. In parting, I'll leave you with this bittersweet video clip, the last known footage of Reid with his monkey snuggie, as he set out trick-or-treating on Halloween:




Farewell faithful snuggie!!