6.6.01

ah, i am sore from much frisbee-throwing with nick. here’s a story:

To: lauren.oster@stanfordalumni.org, paul.kerschen@stanfordalumni.org

From: &ltjgadda@stanfordalumni.org&gt

Subject: Nighmare on Oak Street

So it’s a lazy sunday afternoon, and I’m doing the laundry. I wash my towels, I wash my sheets, I decided that Mr. Bear seems a bit musty and could do with a trip through the wash as well. When I went upstairs to see how Mr. Bear liked the spin cycle, I notice that his fur has some red fuzz on it from the towel I washed him with. I think, well, I’ll just run Mr. Bear thru again by himself, to get the red fuzz off. I turn on the washer. I go downstairs. I wait anxiously to have my bear back. I go upstairs, I open the washer, and, grinning up at me is….

the DECAPITATED HEAD OF MR BEAR!

It was like a horror movie. Only he’s more like Nearly-Headless-Nick (the ghost character in the Harry Potter books), because his head isn’t quite fully severed. And worse yet, the washer was full of his fluffy white guts. I’m afraid the washer’s even going to be clogged with the stuff. I brought poor Mr. Bear downstairs for surgery, but decided the best thing would be to pull all the guts out, let them dry, dry Mr. Bear’s lifeless sack of a body, and then try to put it all back together, perhaps with new stuffing. This is worse than the dog chewing on him (which is how he was promoted from Bear to Mr. Bear – he needed more dignity with Serra gnawing on him). I don’t think there’s a title I can give Mr. Bear to make up for this final disgrace. I think I’ll have to promote him at least to Sir Bear.

Off to do bear surgery.

jen

postscript: after two days, the stuffing hadn’t even begun to dry out, so i put it all into a pillow case, tied a knot in the top, and tossed it into the dryer. as you might have guessed, i returned an hour later to find that the knot had come undone and that the fluff was now all over the inside of the dryer. i spent twenty minutes frantically picking bits of fuzz out the lint trap lest my landlord should figure out what the hell has been clogging up his washer and dryer. mr. bear went back together surprisingly well; his head flops around a bit more than it used to, but otherwise he’s the same old bear. come to think of it…later that fall, my landlord stopped letting us use his washer and dryer. i wonder if i had something to do with that…