What Happened to Snubby?

The other day I was in a national chain pharmacy.  While there I committed a grave shopper sin, the “impulse buy”.  You see, I spotted an absolutely adorable sock monkey pet bed.  Of course I knew right away that I needed it for Spooky.  After all, the poor cat has only a blanket on my night table to sleep on.  And any self-respecting cat should have a real pet bed to sleep in.

But this is not a story about how marketing geniuses have figured out how to get shoppers to buy unneeded items by placing them on the end cap of the aisle.  No, this is a story about my DH and his long lost sock monkey, Snubby.

When DH returned from a 3-day business trip the other day, I excitedly pointed out the new sleeping arrangements I’d made for Spooky.  His first reaction was to smile at the silly sock monkey bed.  Then a look of longing and sadness came over his face.  “What happened to my Snubby?”, he asked in a child-like tone.  Of course I knew about Snubby before.

Snubby was a sock monkey that my DH had as a child.  He was his favorite toy and even accompanied him to the hospital when he suffered a severe case of pneumonia in the 6^th grade.  (6^th grade!)  (BTW, I was also hospitalized in the 6^th grade with pneumonia.  I guess we were made for each other.)  But at some point after that hospital stay, Snubby disappeared. 

Now, DH has an older brother.  And this brother was known from time to time to do naughty things to his younger brother (as all siblings do, of course).  So DH is pretty sure that his brother had something to do with Snubby’s disappearance.  But said brother has been asked and denies any involvement.  It may be that he wasn’t involved.  Or it may be that since this brother is now a man of the cloth, he has blocked any episodes of sock monkey abduction, dismemberment, and disposal from his memory.  Either way, a thorough search of my in-laws’ house failed to turn up any evidence of Snubby.  So we are forced to assume he is no longer around.

What warms my heart about this whole situation is the thought that my somewhat grumpy, over-worked, 40-something hubby was once a little boy who loved a sock monkey named Snubby.  I see that little boy on rare occasions.  And I’m sure heard his voice the other night when he asked, “What happened to my Snubby?”