Week 98- frayed tempers, eBay finds and losing Rabbit

I don’t want to get on a whinge about the heat, because we spend about 11 months of the year complaining about the rain, the cold and the clouds.

But I think it’s true to say that long spells of scorchio sunshine does something to the brain.

 

Or, at the very least, can, once it has brought out the initial best in people, go on to bring out the worst.

We’d just spend an afternoon on the beach, which was lovely, but I think we’d caught a bit too much sun.  

 

Everyone's patience was starting to fray.

 

This wasn’t helped by attempting to negotiate getting into a chokingly hot car in the shopping centre car park, with a rubbish buggy with wheels like a broken shopping trolley, countless plastic bags full of stuff that should probably have been put in the bin that had been tightly wound round the handle so you couldn't get them off.

 

And on top of that, Nancy, who was screaming and going rigid in a vain attempt to avoid being strapped in her car seat.

It was a wonder we all made it home without killing each other.

But it was only at bedtime when Nancy asked for Rabbit, that we realised we hadn’t seen him for several hours.

Last sighted on the way to the car park, in fact.

And all hell broke loose.

Nancy wouldn’t even consider going to sleep without her greatest mate.

Ben and I scoured the flat from top to bottom, which takes an average of two minutes each, before aimlessly walking up and down our street.

It was like going through the five stages of grief.

Denial- convincing ourselves that we’d both seen it since returning home.

Anger- blaming each other for getting on each other’s tits so much at the car park that someone must have dropped him.

Bargaining- drawing straws to see who has to get in the oven/ car to go back into town to see if he was there.

Depression – remembering how much Nancy loves Rabbit, how he’s in all the pictures we have of her, and how, really, he’d become part of the family.

Acceptance – realising that we needed to get another bloody Rabbit. And quick sharpish before Nancy noticed he’d gone.

So Ben and I searched the internet.

Turns out Rabbit was limited edition, and has now gone out of production. Literally nowhere sold one. There were ones like him, but not the same. And Nancy’s not daft; she’d sniff out an imposter straight away.

After three hours I was starting to panic my face off. I couldn’t find one anywhere.

Then, like a beacon in the dark, I found the last Rabbit on sale in England, hidden in the depths of eBay, labelled incorrectly.

My eBay obsession had finally paid off.

I contacted the seller, and said I couldn’t wait 9 days for the bidding to end. I had to replace Rabbit immediately.

Now, thinking back, I shouldn’t have shown my hand so quickly.

 

The woman could obviously smell the desperation in my e-mail, and offered to sell it to me, then and there, for twenty quid.

Twenty fucking quid for a second hand toy that retailed new for seven.

But what could I do? She had me by the balls. Really, she could have said fifty quid, and I’d have made a fuss but still coughed up.

Deal done, I went to bed feeling a bit shitty.

Nancy might not guess that Rabbit wasn’t actually Rabbit, but we’d know.

 

Friends regale stories of going on school trips and returning to find their hamster had changed it’s markings, or guinea pig had shrunk. And how cheated they’d felt.

Next morning, we rang the shopping centre, just to cover all bases, and halle-fucking-lujah, someone had handed Rabbit in. We picked him up, faith restored in humanity once again, and brought him home before Nancy even noticed he’d gone anywhere.

And the next day, the mega expensive second hand Rabbit arrived, smelling like someone else’s child.

I hid backup Rabbit in the back of my undies drawer, ready to whip out if Rabbit ever goes missing again. A friend told me that her son found her back up, and now she’s doubled the risk as she’s got two little guys to replace.

But the real punch in the tits was that Nancy’s lost interest in Rabbit almost entirely over the last few days.

In fact, he slept in the garden yesterday.

Her new bestie is Panda.

A stuffed toy that Ben’s dad brought her back from China.

 

I feel anxious every time we leave the house now, because my part-time wages can just about stretch to an inflated eBay purchase.

But a trip to China?

Maybe not.