4/13/13
I'm just kicking back and chillin'. Probably listening to some music.
There's a knock at the door. Could it be...?
I open the door, and there's the mail carrier with a pair of boxes. I smile, say, 'Thanks. Have a good day,' as I grab the boxes and stack them up in the doorway of the apartment.
One box was from Michigan. The other one was from somewhere in eastern Canada. So, it was amusing to me that they arrived on the same day.
I knew who was coming from where. So, the box from Michigan was opened first.
There she was: Portia Porcupine, in the plush. (Since she doesn't have flesh. LOL) She was still in her original packaging with her roller skates. Now, I'm not one of those people who cares about resale. Are you insane?
I wanted one of these since I was 8. No way I was going to resell her. She's getting buried with me, and if anyone prevents that from happening, I will haunt you for the rest of your days. Ya think I can be harsh in this realm? LOL, I would drive people to the point of insanity if they screwed me over on that.
I removed Portia from the packaging, took off the skates, and tossed them into the shipping container.
I held her up and yelled: "Oh, my God! It's YOU!" I gave her a huge hug and a kiss on the forehead. After carefully placing her on the couch, I opened up the box from Canada.
Dotty Dog didn't have her original packaging. But she did have her skates. Not that it mattered to me. Into the shipping container they went. I didn't have the same reaction to her. But I was still happy to have her. I placed her next to Portia and bagged up the trash.
Eventually, I got the smaller versions of Portia and Dotty. By this point, my Get Along Gang fanfiction series was underway. I altered Portia by snipping off her quills. Dotty had her ribbons removed. I renamed them Patrica and Doris since I already had those characters in the fanfics. They were cousins to Portia and Dotty, respectively. They were 3 years younger than Portia and Dotty. They also lived in the mountain town of Pine Corners (an actual location in the Get Along Gang world). This was also the home of Erica Porcupine. But those characters never crossed paths due to the age difference. Plus, Erica was pretty reclusive due to all of the abuse she had to endure from her peers and teachers. Thankfully, she had very supportive parents. (Even if her father was resistant and her mother set him straight.) Hmmmm, this is going elsewhere. Maybe I will discuss that in another post.)
So, anyway...as time went on, I added others such as Mr Bacon. He was a plush bacon that talked. He would just say "I'm bacon" over and over and had a mechanical mouth that moved. As hilarious as that was, I removed the voice box since I was worried about battery leakage. That didn't matter anyway. I just thought he was totally trippy.
At some point in the summer of 2014, I was out at my parents' house. I asked my mom if she still had the dog from back in the day. She did. It was in a chest in my dad's room. She was curious why I wanted it back. I laughed and said it would be awesome to have her with the others. That smoke smell, though. Oh, my god. It took a while to get that smell out of her. She was renamed Debra. Debra was the name of the adopted daughter of Dotty. There was one story where it was 20 years in the future, and she made an appearance there. In this story, Laura Squirrel and Portia Porcupine were a married couple. Even though they were now in their thirties, they were still very much kids at heart; Debra would always rope them in to playing Legos with her.
There I go again with that.....
Eventually, Babs Bunny and Dot Warner joined the crew. I REALLY wanted one of Fifi Le Fume. But, as far as I could tell, there were no dolls of her that were produced.
Then.....everything went down the tubes fast.
Some genius brought bugs into my place and the building got infested. Everything had to go. It was so, so, so depressing. Sure, some might say "Oh, grow up, you big baby." Well.....I won't say what I actually said. But I am pretty sure that you can figure out what my response was.
I would rebuild and get some of them back. Portia was, obviously, the most important. THEN this happened again.....and again.
After the third time, I was so done on so many levels. It really was a struggle not to just say 'laterz', ya know what I mean? Between medical problems going on at the same time, I was beyond at the end of my rope.
But, one night, after crying for three days straight over this, I decided to just do it and buy yet another Portia doll, hoping that this cycle wouldn't repeat itself again.
There were 2 Portia dolls on eBay in the U.S. The larger one and the smaller one. I bought the larger one. I was talking to my friend, and when I told him that I bought the larger one. He informed me that he had purchased the smaller one, and it was supposed to be a surprise because he knew how important this was to me. I eventually donated the smaller one for various reasons. I don't even remember what they were. I just wanted her to get back out into the world. But I still mention that from time to time since I was so touched by him doing that. I've repaid that favor back to him in a few ways when he was in certain spots.
I eventually got Dotty back too.
I think that covers everything.
