First you need a little back story.
I have this crazy, irrational fear/phobia of getting shot. Shot with a gun and bullets, not a camera. It makes no sense, and I have no interesting story of where this came from or why I even have it. It’s just that loud gunshot type noises, cause me to “duck and cover.” Yes, I’m serious. For example, in the middle of the night a large framed photo fell off the wall and hit a pot plant making a very loud noise. Before my husband could even register that something had happened, I was up, out of bed, and face down on the floor. Example number two: We have a projector downstairs in our home theater room. When a bulb burns out in a projector, it usually explodes. Just so happens we were watching a movie when one of the bulbs exploded. Once again, when the lights come on, I am face down on the floor because I thought someone was shooting at me. These are just two of the examples that I’m willing to share. There are more.
A few months ago, I told my Mom that I wanted some new bedding in the master bedroom. I sent her a picture from a catalog, and asked her to make it. (She’s good like that! She can make anything!) For Valentines Day, I received my new awesome bedding, complete with pillows! Chenille pillows with little squares of chenille in the bedding! It’s totally fantastically amazing.

So yesterday I’m making up the bed and that little pillow in the middle had fallen to the floor. I picked it up and thought I would just “fluff” it really quick. So I grab the corner of the pillow, pop my knee out, raise the pillow up to my head, bring it down to my knee, and WHAM!
The most intense pain, seriously. So much so that it knocks me to the floor and I’m pretty sure I blacked out.
As I’m laying on the floor this is my thought, “Well, it finally happened. I’ve been SHOT in the knee!”
Really, why wouldn’t I think that. I mean WHAT ON EARTH could be in a PILLOW that wasn’t all nice and fluffy soft??!!
I laid on the floor for a good five minutes just trying to figure out what the HECK had just happened!
When I realized it was “safe” to move again, I felt the pillow and it dawned on me: THE ELF!

The story of the Elf.
Many moons ago, I was out shopping with my Mom. She is “Christmas Crazy” and it was the middle of summer, but we were in a Christmas store. I was looking at a cute little stocking, and when I touched it, the crazy little elf stocking holder came crashing to the floor. It broke into several pieces and those pieces scattered to every corner. It took a good ten minutes to crawl under all the displays to find them! And after all of that, the little sales lady made me buy the stinking, broken, ugly elf.
Once we were back home, my Mom lovingly glued him back together claiming that “he’s not that bad, almost kind of cute!” I was pretty much just sore about the whole deal, and never wanted to see that little thing again! I told her if she liked it so much then she should keep it! So I put “Twinkle Toes” in her kitchen window, and there it stayed the whole trip.
After I arrived to my own home, I was unpacking my suitcase and what do I see?!! That ugly stinking elf! Twinkle Toes had been put in my suitcase…I think another part of him had been broken off in trip. UGGG!!! So I wrapped him up with a little note, and mailed him back to my Mom.
So began the travels of Twinkle Toes. Back and forth with different packages. Back and forth on trips and in suitcases. Once I hid it in her house so well that she didn’t find it for almost two years! When I was home this past summer, I made the mistake of letting the little man in on the secret hiding place, and I think he told Mom. She tried to sneak it out in a “special box”, but I found it and left it with my Grandmother. This time my sneaky little Mom had sewn Twinkle Toes into the pillow. Touché, Mom, touché!
Over his travels he’s been broken again and again, and we just keep gluing him back together.

I have to admit, this was a good one Mom! I might not have ever found it, had you not tried to shot me. Lesson learned: Always be on the look out. You never know when “Twinkle Toes” might show up! (or someone could be shooting at you!)
Stay safe out there people…it’s a crazy world!
-S