Sleeping with the Fishes

My daughter greets me at the door when I return home.

"Do you know where Woody is?" she asks. "We can't find him anywhere."

No pleasantries. I have just finished a four-hour trip from my father-in-law's funeral in Annapolis. No "How was your trip?" nor "So happy you're home safely." Just a direct question.

"No," I quickly reply, stepping into the house.

"Woood-ddy, Woood-ddy," Marshall calls plaintively, as he walks from room to room holding Woody's hat.

I, too, join the search. Even before I bring in my bags.

Marshall loves Woody and Buzz. When he comes to my house, he makes a beeline for the red toy basket under my family room desk where my circa 1996, 15-inch Toy Story 1 Sheriff Woody and Astronaut Buzz Lightyear usually reside. But today Woody is not there.

Only two-and-a-half, Marshall, a second child, is a child of few demands and even fewer words. And his mournful calls to a silent Woody (whose pullstring has long since been broken) tug at my heartstrings, particularly given my promise three nights ago. Marshall had tried to sneak out of my house with both my Woody and my Buzz in tow. His father, however, immediately noticed the dolls, each one-third Marshall's size, and told him to return them to the toy bin. It was then that I promised an inconsolable Marshall that Woody and Buzz would be patiently waiting for him the next time he came to Granma's house. And now Woody is gone.

So my broken promise impels us. We three, his father, his mother, and I, search. His father looks for Woody upstairs, downstairs, and in the basement. He lifts up living room chairs and checks behind the sofa. His mother looks upstairs, downstairs, and in the basement. She lifts up couch cushions and braves the clutter at the bottom of my closets. I, too, look upstairs, downstairs, and in the basement, under bed pillows and in dresser drawers. All to no avail. Finally, we switch tacks. We placate Marshall with my vintage Burger King Toy Story 1 Kids Meal toys. Despite their missing limbs, he plays contentedly with these mini wounded warriors.

I am perplexed. Every so often, I interrupt what I am doing to check yet another spot for the third or fourth time. In bed, I rehearse my searches once more. Woody haunts me. I am nearly as inconsolable as Marshall. Not just because Woody is missing, but also because Woody serves as a reminder of one of my great failures as a parent.

You see, Woody is the only toy that eluded my inner Santa all those years of Christmas mornings when my children were small. I was an expert at fulfilling my children's Christmas wishes, big and small, simple or complex. I scored a hard-to-find Game Gear, three Game Boys, a Samantha doll, multiple Tamagotchis, and even two Mighty Morphin Power Ranger action figures in 1994 when no one could find them. (A tip from a stranger in a Toys 'R Us aisle gave me the phone number of yet another stranger who lived four towns over who sold me Blue and Black Rangers for slightly over the price she had paid for them in Florida where they were more abundant.)

But Christmas 1996 I failed. Years before Amazon and Cyber Monday, despite my best efforts searching every toy store within a 50-mile radius and even begging a friend who worked at Disney headquarters, I could secure neither a Woody nor a Buzz to place under the Christmas tree for my son Daniel. Instead he found a ragtag collection of Burger King Toy Story 1 Kids Meal toys. (I ate a lot of hamburgers and chicken nuggets.) It was not until his fourth birthday, six months later, that I overcompensated by giving Daniel both Woody and Buzz.

Today I convince myself that if I just look hard enough I will find Woody. I might have failed my son Daniel those many years ago. But I am not about to fail my grandson. So I check every possible spot once again--behind the curtains and under the table in the dining room, under the beds upstairs, in all the nooks and crannies of my closets. I pull out every toy in every toy basket.

I spy the little suitcase Adella carries around and think, "Aha, there he is." But he is not. I begin checking less logical places, under the sheets in the basement waiting to be laundered, in the ball bin in a corner of the garage, behind the milk in the refrigerator. But I cannot find Woody. Maybe, I think, Toy Store 1 did not end so happily ever after all and Buzz has exacted his revenge on my Woody.

Finally, I stop. I resign myself to the fact that somehow Woody must have mistakenly been placed in a trash can or among my Goodwill donations. Or stolen by some evil elves. And I wonder, will my Woody, who has the letters A-D-E-L-L-A  written crudely on the sole of his boot, make his way back to my home.

I am resigned, but not defeated. So I do what any self-respecting, compulsive grandmother would do: I place a bid on eBay and sit back on my couch and wait. And when I look up from my computer screen, I see my kitchen table, a maple-drop-leaf farmhouse table. With a drawer.

No, I think. Woody could not possibly fit in that small drawer. My placemats barely fit in it. But I hurry over to the drawer and jerk it open, nonetheless. And there Woody is. Sleeping with the fishes. Or rather sleeping with one fish--Goldie, a Beanie Baby goldfish.

"Yee-haw," I yell loudly, as my hands jubilantly reach for the sky. "I found it! I found it!"

There is no one to share in my triumph. But I do not care. I have found Woody. I have redeemed myself. I have not failed my grandson. At least for today.

Then my computer bings. I panic. Obsessive Granma had placed my bid. I am now once more Rational, Pragmatic Granma. In my efforts to secure a Woody, I cannot remember how high I bid. I rush to my computer.

Outbid, the emails says.

"Whew," I think.

Dodged some Rootin' Tootin' bullets today.