S. C. Virtes

Last of the Soft Things

When young Amy Walters bit the nose off her stuffed bunny, Puff, and swallowed it, she had no way of knowing that she was about to change the world.

Mom Walters was lounging in the fat chair with a bag of Oreo cookies. She looked at the baby, who was suddenly quiet. “Bob, does the baby look funny to you?”

Bob put his beer can in its ring/stain on the lamp table, then unslouched and took a look. “Is this a trick question?”

“I mean, does she look… blue?”

“Everything looks blue. The TV’s on.”

Amy made a weird little choking sound, and Mom Walters flurried into action. She ran in circles around the room, screaming, “Oh my God!”

Bob got up, patted the baby on the back, and the bunny nose popped out. It stuck to the carpet, covered with drool. The baby seemed surprised. She thought about crying, then decided it wasn’t worth it, and snuggled against Bob’s chest instead. The crisis was over.

Mom Walters kept orbiting the sofa, waving her arms. When Bob calmed her down she spoke frankly. “Somebody’s going to hear about this!”

Donald Wheaton ran a clean business. He tried to keep his employees reasonably happy, though they were a demanding lot. As a child he had wanted to be an astronaut, like all the other kids, but after way too much school, the National Astronaut Waiting List was 10,000 pages long and there hadn’t been a mission in years. So he had to swallow his pride and get a real job. The first few years were rough, and he ended up living off of his doctoral thesis, which wasn’t so bad with milk and strawberries on it. He always thought of it as com flakes with little letters typed on the back. After several uneventful jobs, he grabbed a bank loan and started his own business: FooCo, manufacturer of “Fine Smooshy Things for Kids.” He employed 850 people, and had quite a reputation among the soft toy community.

His secretary, Jeremy, rapped on the door, then came into the office with a stack of mail.

Jeremy plopped the mail down on the desk. He knew the boss was just hanging around, spacing out, but he never had the nerve to say anything about it. “Uh, that top one came registered. Looks important.”

Don peeked at the envelope. It was from the District Attorney. He immediately felt a twinge of anti-curiosity. The last thing in the world he wanted to do was to open that envelope. He ran a good business. He was careful to make only smooshy things, because his legal advisor said solid objects were too risky. Now… why would the DA want to talk to him?

Don waved Jeremy out of the room, then stared at the envelope from three hundred different angles before taking a heavy breath and tearing it open.

He was being sued by a Stocktown group called Parents Against Lethal Crib-Things (a non-profit corporation), founded by Mom Walters.

His first reaction was natural: “Funny name for a mother,” he muttered. Then he realized that he was doomed.

The court battle was short and senseless. In the excerpts that follow, FooCo was represented by its legal advisor, Mac MacDonald, who tried his best to make sense of the accusations.

FOO: Because your daughter choked briefly on the severed nose of a FooCo bunny—one unit out of 400,000 sold—you are demanding the recall of every single unit sold to the public?

Would you explain your reasoning here?

MOM: They’re dangerous.

FOO: Did your child suffer any injury which might support your claim?

MOM: She choked! She could not breathe for almost an hour! Who knows what damage that might have caused to all those little growing brain cells?

FOO: Did you say “almost an hour”?

MOM: Well, I wasn’t exactly timing the episode. My stopwatch was in the bathroom.

FOO: According to your husband, the episode lasted less than fifteen seconds. Doesn’t that seem more likely?

MOM: He’s a pain in the ass.

FooCo brought in a forensic expert who argued that “during the course of development, die average child chokes on an average of 300 objects, 10 percent of which are larger than a bumblebee, and 0.004 percent are bumblebees… in summary, by the age of six, ordinary respiratory pauses included, a child spends 2,120 hours not breathing. The effect of an extra fifteen seconds can be seen as less than significant.”

FooCo lost the battle, of course. When more than 1/20 of a mother gets worried, the corporate sector has no chance. The verdict was short and direct, “Find every Mr. Bunnyhead in existence, and burn them.”

The recall took twenty-seven months, $1.3 million, 700 investigators, 85 Bunnyhead-seeking dogs, and a sneaky campaign of Easter bunny-trading. When they finally reported 99.99 percent recall, the State demanded better. “You mean that there are enough bunnies left out there to slaughter almost 0.0004 children?”

Mac checked his notes. “That’s 0.00027 children, according to the latest statistics from the Bunnyhead Threat Studies Commission.”

The State was firm. “Find them, or suffer the consequences. ”

“Consequences?” Mac thought, as he left the court building. “Imagine that!”

The last bunny was located in a landfill outside of Upside, Michigan. Mysteriously, it was in a trash stratum which local archaeologists dated at about 1964. Yet its remains were positively identified, using standard DNA fingerprinting. The recall was finally over.

For the first time in years, Donald Wheaton could relax. The long ordeal had cost him his wife, his membership in the Politically Correct Toymakers Guild, and years of media smearing.

He was gray, and his stomach was wracked with ulcers, but he tried to keep his cheer. After all, his only crime was wanting to give kids something to hug.

“Are you sure this last… thing… was actually a Bunnyhead?” he asked Mac.

“The DNA test said it was either a Bunnyhead, or an escaped convict from Detroit. Judging from the body mass of 122 grams, the convict matchup was considered spurious.”

Donald had to crack a smile. “I love it when expensive technology provides nice clear answers.”

“It’s a good thing you decided to stuff the toys with down, instead of some synthetic fiber. Otherwise there wouldn’t have been any DNA to play with. Good thinking.”

“Actually, I used down because a local manufacturer went out of business, and we could buy several tons of the stuff cheap. Plus it’s naturally soft and harmless.”

Mac looked less happy than before. “Oh.”

Donald clapped his hands together. “Cheer up! It’s finally over!”

Later that day, nauseated from the stench of 402,331 roasting Bunnyheads, Don invited his forty-two employees (all that were left) into the company meeting room, and unrolled the blueprints for Bunnybaby.

“As you know,” he announced, “we’ve had some time to develop a revolutionary new bunny-nose glue. We used it on our PandaThing last year, and so far, we’ve had no trouble with it. But kids like bunnies, and if we’re going to get back on the market, we need to get a new bunny in production, so let’s get on it. Bryan,” he patted his R&D man on the shoulder, “says he can have the stuffers configured by Friday.”

Bunnybaby hit the streets in March of 1997. Children everywhere, riding in shopping carts, grabbed the cuddly things from the shelves (strategically placed just-within-reach), and begged for a bunny to hug. Mothers and fathers checked the label, which read, “made in the USA by FooCo-II,” and, in microscopic print: “Nineteen bank loans later, thanks a lot!”

Fathers gave the creature a test squashing, and said things like, “Looks harmless enough.”

So Bunnybaby sold out, and FooCo looked like it was going somewhere, when disaster struck a second time.

This time, the case was a bit different: “Lynn Bobbie Ann Jones, three, of Waldo, Connecticut, was diagnosed with acute cross-eyes on 10/10/97. After a prolonged search for environmental causes, a most likely cause was found. The bunny-nose glue used in Bunnybaby toys apparently reacts violently with the acid-drool of iron-deficient infants, releasing trace amounts of quaylene, an alkaloid long suspected of causing eye trauma and public relations disorders.”

FooCo s defense: “Our investigators have found a much stronger causative agent for the unfortunate disfigurement of little Lynn Jones. As anyone can verify for themselves, there is a hyperwatt transformer outside her bedroom window. There is a 900 gauss low-frequency EMF running through her room. As evidence of its effects, we submit photographs of metal toys stuck to the wall behind the victim’s crib. Also, her goldfish were found to be highly polarized, and can only be seen when they are swimming toward the observer. The effect on the girl’s sensitive nervous system cannot be overstated. ”

In the mother’s own words: “Little Lynn has always had a difficult time putting down silverware. It seems to leap back into her hands. When she’s in the front seat, the compass on the dashboard always says we’re going SW. She’s a strange kid, but these people peddling their toxic rabbits have got to be stopped.”

FooCo lost again.

In 1998, FooCo roasted the Bunnybabies, and released its next creature… Bunnybutt. This odd species was noseless, but on the label there was a cute poem explaining how it could locate carrots and belly-buttons using its acute telepathic powers.

It sold 222,000 units before all hell broke loose.

The charges: “Jason Weber, age nineteen, claims that his Bunnybutt poked out his eye with its stiff whiskers…”

FooCo observed: “Does the victim deny his membership in the Redlands Fist Gang? Does he also attribute the broken nose, bruises, and knife wound— acquired the same evening—to our client’s soft and shapeless product? And, anecdotally, what the hell is this kid doing with a stuffed rabbit anyway?”

This time, employees brought marshmallows and sticks to the Bunny Burning, which was becoming an annual tradition. Donald Wheaton looked like he was about seventy; he had long since pulled out his hair. He still had a sense of humor—though it had its morbid swings from time to time. Indefatigable, he immediately proposed his next creation.

Bunnyblob was a sure-fire thing. It had no whiskers, no nose, and its eyes were drawn on by skilled eyeball artists using only the finest non-toxic crayons. It looked like a blob, thus its name. It came with a tag explaining evolution in layman’s terms, and comparing Bunnyblob to the now-extinct narwhal which, through millions of years of careful selection, was just an enormous blob of stuff with no purpose.

Bunnyblob wasn’t much of a success, until word got out that it was fun to punch. Then every kid wanted one of the sad-eyed, hopeless creatures to abuse. No matter how much you bopped them and stabbed them, they just squinched back into shape and looked like they were about to cry. They were even safe in the microwave, and when they came out, they bounced like Superballs.

Then, a diapered delinquent set his best friend’s Bunnyblob on fire. It sat there in a puddle, and melted like a good bunny, but the kids burned their hands playing with the hot carcass. Their mothers were furious.

This time, Donald actually cried. He called his employees into the office, and watched them slink in and look uncomfortable. These were his friends. He’d been good to the ones who stayed with him, but times were different now. “We’re ruined,” he said flatly. “People don’t want hugs anymore. They want quick bucks, and they’ll plow over anybody to get it. Go get jobs where you’ve got a future. I hear bombs are popular this year.”

He could say no more. One by one, the grayed, dejected staff slithered off. The youngest stayed behind. “Does that mean there isn’t going to be a Bunny Roast this year?”

Donald almost laughed. “It should be the most insanely popular Bunny Roast ever. Wouldn’t want to mess with the tradition. Bring all your friends…”

His last press release summed up his trials and fears succinctly:

“You don’t see a whole lot of people suing the companies who make these deranged, exploding war toys, do you? I guess that when a kid gets his arms blown off, Dad is expected to think, ‘Oh yeah, it’s a war toy. It’s supposed to do that.’

“So damn the guys who don’t do anything wrong. How wonderfully Modem of you.

“Notice the complete absence of control on soap. Soap is dangerous. Several people each year are injured by stepping on soap, but nobody has designed a bar that isn’t deadly slippery. I wonder why. I’m sure someone broke their back slipping in the shower, and went to a lawyer, furious. I hope the case got to court, and the judge said, ‘Everyone knows soap is slippery. What sort of idiot are you?’

“I’m dreaming. I know. Everyone is liable, but nobody is responsible. I wish I hadn’t eaten my thesis.”

The release was edited down to a single sentence and packed onto a dead-page in the local paper, between the weekly article on Bridge and a column for xenophobes called “Ask Doctor Goaway.” At least six people did read the last words of Donald Wheaton, but the only verbal response was from an overweight English professor: “The average thesis is quite high in dietary liber.”

Soft-Toymakers’ insurance became too expensive, the industry was too much of a risk. A year later there were no more stuffed toys. A steel company filled the market gap with a thing called a Wire Hug, which was more of a rock than a toy. Kids killed each other (and several parents) by flinging their Hugs around, but the company never got sued.

Thirty years down the road, the children had all grown into psychopaths. When the National Football League introduced the Uzi as standard gear, people realized that something strange had happened. It was not unusual to see the president strangle Democratic congressmen and eat their heads for lunch (“with a mild horseradish sauce,” he said in one interview).

A group of pacifists (in light body armor) scoured the city around the burned-out shrine of FooCo, looking for the Fool Who Once Built Bunnies.

They never found him.

Content

S. C. Virtes
Last of the Soft Things