{"id":142,"date":"2011-04-21T22:46:04","date_gmt":"2011-04-21T22:46:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/deadreal.com.au\/dead_things\/?p=142"},"modified":"2020-10-12T12:13:59","modified_gmt":"2020-10-12T01:13:59","slug":"when-teddies-die-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/deadreal.com.au\/dead_things\/when-teddies-die-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"When teddies die part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Another<\/a><\/p>\n

What\u2019s going on here? I was mildly shocked to discover a cache of dumped teddies<\/a> not so long ago and now here\u2019s another one, a lone lost teddy left out in the laneway. Is this a new social phenomenon, like granny dumping, a response to the pressures of living with too many teddies and the realisation that there is simply not enough room for them all? Maybe attics these days are not big enough to store them all or perhaps we are over-indulging in teddies. Our teddy collecting habits are out of control and, inevitably, there are casualties \u2013 innocent victims of our sentimental infatuation with stuffed animals.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s something different going on here though. Whereas the other teddies were definitely dumped, this one looks lost, like a castaway swept up on a distant shore. He\u2019s been lying out in the rain for a few days and his fur is matted and sodden. He looks as if he tried to get up at some point but, lacking the strength, simply collapsed on the spot, too exhausted to move. I was tempted to see if he could be revived but, in my heart, I know it\u2019s too late. All that can be done now is to move him out of harm\u2019s way and hope that whoever lost him will retrace their steps and reclaim him.<\/p>\n

How did this happen? All too easily, as we know. It only takes a momentary lapse in concentration, a split-second distraction, for teddies (and other toys, let\u2019s not forget them too \u2013 Lego, cars, Star Wars<\/em> figurines \u2013 they\u2019ve all gone this way) to slip out of sight. The whole Toy Story<\/em><\/a> franchise is built on that anxiety, the fear of being lost and left behind, either through carelessness or the inevitable passage of Time.<\/p>\n

Acceptance of lost teddies is a fact of life. It may sound brutal to say it but I lack the means \u2013 emotional and philosophical \u2013 to offer any other consolation. We can mourn and move on because, inevitably, there will be other teddies just around the corner.<\/p>\n

(Actually, in case you thought that last sentence was too depressing, there were no other teddies around the corner. I\u2019m thinking \u2013 hoping \u2013 this might be an isolated dead teddy incident.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What\u2019s going on here? I was mildly shocked to discover a cache of dumped teddies not so long ago and now here\u2019s another one, a lone lost teddy left out in the laneway. Is this a new social phenomenon, like granny dumping, a response to the pressures of living with too many teddies and the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":143,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"two_page_speed":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,46],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-142","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-lost-and-found","8":"category-conveyor-belt","10":"post-with-thumbnail","11":"post-with-thumbnail-icon"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deadreal.com.au\/dead_things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/deadreal.com.au\/dead_things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/deadreal.com.au\/dead_things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deadreal.com.au\/dead_things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deadreal.com.au\/dead_things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/deadreal.com.au\/dead_things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5568,"href":"https:\/\/deadreal.com.au\/dead_things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142\/revisions\/5568"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deadreal.com.au\/dead_things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deadreal.com.au\/dead_things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deadreal.com.au\/dead_things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deadreal.com.au\/dead_things\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}