A month ago, the next door neighbor to our left sold her house. It's disappointing to lose a good neighbor, but it's perfectly reasonable that she should want to move closer to her grandchildren after the death of her husband, a very nice man who was also a former head of our local Board of Education.

The person who bought her house remains unseen. So far as I can tell, no one has moved in yet, but the house receives nearly daily shipments of packages, as though someone was redecorating with entirely new products purchased on Amazon.com. Earlier this week, they even delivered a car, a Mercedes-Benz. I've been joking that someone is building a safe house for spies.

Meanwhile, the neighbors to our right, a couple with young children, backed a U-Haul up to their house yesterday afternoon, and this morning they were gone, taking with them their dog who enjoyed coming into our yard and barking at me. Obviously, we were not as close to them, and their departure was very unexpected.

They left a rollaway dumpster in their driveway filled with furniture, including beds, dressers, and children's' bicycles. Why would anyone leaving a house in such a hurry take the time to throw so much of their stuff away? If it was an eviction, I'd think they would have just left the stuff where it was. If they sold and are moving, why not take the children's toys? The only reason I can think of for anyone to leave in such a state of disarray is because their house is haunted.

I am currently, quite literally, surrounded by mysteries.

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Stuffed animals often become a comforting, reassuring presence for their owners, and 2020 was a terrible year. Put those two things together, and you might have predicted a stuffed animal boom in 2021. But did you realize what form they'd take?

If you said teddy bears or puppy dogs, you haven't been paying attention to pop culture lately.

That last one there is a tie-in with the unmemorable Emoji Movie, which reminds me that back in the day my brother had a stuffed, vinyl E.T. doll that I found particularly unattractive. I owe you an apology, 1982 E.T.

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I feel like the recent announcement that Hasbro is dropping the "Mr." and "Mrs." from their Potato Head toys is something that I should be blogging about. It's exactly the sort of inconsequential bit of nostalgic pop-culture bullshit for an overgrown man-child to rant sarcastically about.

However, in 2021, if I make a joke about a plastic potato no longer having a penis, that means I qualify to be a panelist on Fox News. Good grief. (Fun fact: Fox News much prefers their plastic potatoes to have vaginas as God intended.)

These days, everything is a political weapon. From which fast food you have for lunch to which comic books you read to whether you take steps to prevent the spread of disease, every goddamn thing is now a cudgel that someone will use to drive their agenda against you.

Has it always been this way? Was I just not paying attention before? When did everyone get so sensitive? Wokeness is fucking exhausting. We could use some laughter to break this tension, but someone is sure to take that personally.

Way to suck the fun out of a toy, everybody.

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Jacob stood in the deserted street and looked up at the large, faded sign.

He had been sent to live with his aunt in Wyoming when the outbreak had started. It was for his own safety, his parents had said. What with the riots and looting and hand-sanitizer made by state prisoners, not to mention the virus itself, the city was just too dangerous.

We'll be back for you just as soon as the shelter-in-place order is lifted, said his mother from behind her n-95 respirator mask. His father gave him a comic book, one of the last printed before the country's last comics distributor had shut down. Then his parents had fist-bumped him goodbye and driven away.

His aunt died from the virus two weeks later. (If only they'd tested her!)

Faced with the dreary fate of slowly starving until he was reduced to eating his aunt's massive, unused toilet paper stockpile, Jacob made the only decision he could. He carefully wrapped his few precious possessions in a hobo bindle and set out on foot.

It was a harrowing journey. The wasteland was a wild and unforgiving place filled with roving gangs of self-driving Teslas fighting over solar energy charging stations. At night, Jacob struggled to sleep under a brilliant sky filled with the reflected glow from SpaceX's Starlink satellites.

It took nearly a month and all of Jacob's determination, but he finally made it to a place where he wouldn't have to grow up, a neverland without end. The sign in front of him said it all. "TOYS R US."

Jacob couldn't wait to see what wonders lay behind the darkened windows. He made camp in the lonely parking lot and waited for the first employee of the day to come and unlock paradise.

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Finally! An appropriate thing to be made in the shape of a poo emoji!

Go ahead. Squeeze it.

"Best for photo ops" it says. I mean, yeah, I suppose if you are determined to take a photo of your dog eating poo, better this than the real thing.

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As if being pegged by a dodgeball wasn't bad enough...

Thanks for nothing, Aldi.

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It's poo! It's a unicorn! It's a Poonicorn!

What will they think of next? I hope I don't find out.

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Last night while behind the wheel dodging deer and listening to DJ patter, I was inspired to consider what my oldest memory might be. They say that the average person's memories begin at the age of three. That might be about right for me, too.

I remember that the master bedroom in our house in Stone Mountain had green carpet and a split level with black railing along the single step separating the bed from the sitting room/attached bath. (What can I say? It was the late 70s when even builders had bad taste.) I recall looking up through the bars of the railing at my mother in bed with my baby brother. I must have been about three years old.

Is it a real memory? I think so. It seems to me that most of what I remember of my childhood comes from pictures and videos my family took. Birthdays, Halloween, Christmas, all of these are things I remember secondhand from pictures and film, seen again much after the fact. To the best of my knowledge, no such pictures were taken through iron bars at my mother and brother in bed.

If that's not my oldest memory, I'm not sure what is. Playing with Kenner Star Wars toys in my sandbox? Going with my neighbors to see Raiders of the Lost Ark? Listening to Joan Jett's I Love Rock 'n Roll record? My memories after 1981 get very good. Those are real, but they aren't my earliest.

Honestly, I don't think about the past much. It's a habit I've cultivated. Most of what I do remember is the unpleasant stuff, so it's best to avoid it. Live in the present, knowwhatimean?

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Maybe I'm just jealous that they didn't sell poop-shaped toys when I was three years old, but no. Just no.

I don't know what's wrong with kids in 2019. Back in my day, everyone came with their own poop slime formula.

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When I started this series of posts, I thought that the shit emoji must be a fad that would lose its appeal over time. I was wrong.

Yes, I showed you a floating pile of shit last year, but that one was recommended for ages 9 and up. This one is suitable for 7-year-olds. Next year expect shit-shaped water wings.

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