Piggy

The last photo with Piggy.

We knew someday we'd lose Piggy. On a sidewalk. Down a river. In a supermarket aisle. Tai carried him around too much outside the condo for Tai not to have Piggy drop out of his fumbly hands, and for us not to notice or Tai to alert us. And so this morning in busy Berkeley, walking right outside Starbucks, Piggy fell out of Tai's grip. Perhaps Tai was distracted by a bird or a car buzzing by. Whatever the reason, Piggy went plop on the pavement without so much as a goodbye.

A search ensued this afternoon when we finally realized Piggy was missing. Really, he could have been anywhere. At the Mexican restaurant we had breakfast at this morning, or the children's museum where Tai played afterwards. But I'm sure it was outside Starbucks, where Tai got his morning pastry. When I went there to ask the workers if they had seen a stuffed animal pig, the manager said she had. A homeless person found it outside the store this morning and came in to ask if anyone had lost the animal. No one had. So he left. With Piggy.

After hearing that, I walked up and down Shattuck Avenue and talked to more homeless people and scanned the contents of more shopping carts than I ever had before. There I was, asking adult men if they had by any chance found a stuffed animal pig outside Starbucks this morning. Who's the crazy one now? None had seen it. One man, worse off than the others, said as I gave him a dollar and walked away, "Now that's the first time I'd seen a grown man looking for a stuffed animal."

"Actually it's for my son," I replied. They he yelled, completely in earnest, "You know they have them at Goodwill."

I wasn't about to explain that I wasn't looking for just any stuffed animal, but the one that my son has slept with every night for most of his life and taken on every trip.

All that aside—and yes, I realize there are much, much more important things to worry about in life, but nonetheless this is something to be dealt with in the parenting universe—right now, we'd be happy to find Piggy2. Oddly enough, even for a Beanie Baby, I can't find this exact pig anywhere for sale online. (Piggy is a "retired" member of Ty's Pluffies collection.) Maybe the homeless man is right and Goodwill does sell it. For Tai's sake, I hope we find a store that does.