Smudge and I spent a lovely afternoon together recently, wandering from coffee shop to restaurant to tourist site to shops.
Amongst the latter was a branch of a make-your-own teddy bear store. For the uninitiated, like myself, this works as follows:
a) Choose bear.
b) Choose sound effect.
c) Hand to shop assistant for stuffing.
d) Select outfit for bear from extensive range.
e) Hand over credit card, and wince.
The interesting stage in this is (b), for one can record one’s own 10-second clip. So I’m wondering – does the sound gizmo have to go in the bear’s tummy? See, a bear dressed in school uniform, that yelps when its bottom is smacked, could be just the thing for kinky Christmas stockings this year.
Oh… My… God… that is a genius idea… They have those in Canada and the States. Build-A-Bear.
Haha I’d love to see the look on the poor girls face if you asked…suspect if one was handy with a needle and thread you could ‘move’ the soundbox though. Or just start marketing your own line of ‘beat-a-bear’ instead of ‘build-a-bear’. Maybe you could even incorporate a deluxe model using the technology of those annoying crying dolls…
Hey, I saw one of those build-a-bear shops yesterday! I wondered if I should get one because I didn’t bring a single teddy bear to the UK. But yeah, they’re probably really expensive. Perhaps I’m better off flying home to get my big huge soft teddy bear… Even though it doesn’t yelp when I try to spank it. Which I would never want to do in the first place, of course! Teddy bears are cute!
Shh, you guys! They only exist *here*, in this town, okay?? And seeing as Abel missed out the ‘put a satin heart inside the bear and make a wish’ stage, I think he should revisit the store and make sure he remembers what to do. It’s terribly important, you know. Isn’t it a pity there’s only one store in the *whole world*? Looks like he’ll have to come back…
I’m never going to look at Build A Bear shops again in the same way. Not that I’ve ever seen one obviously, as they are only where Smudge lives… 😉
Smudge – You’ve not been misleading Abel have you? I’m shocked!! I wonder if he can think of a way to deal with you for that…
Irelynn – No teddy? That’s so sad
I take my teddy whenever I go away, lucky for me he’s only little, and lovely and soft 
My daughter got a ‘Build a Bear’ bear off her boyfriend the other week (He’d obviously been shopping where Smudge lives), this is the boyfriend who also thought it a good idea to smack her bottom with a wooden spoon when they were cooking. I wonder…