Cookie Monster Isn't Really a Monster

Sheila wrote a great post about famous faces that she loves.

A lot of beautiful/handsome people made the list. A lot of people who wouldn't be considered conventionally pretty or handsome also made the list.
Dave Grohl, my favorite face too, made the list.

A surprising face on Sheila's list is Cookie Monster from Sesame Street.

Memories came flooding back to me when I saw that picture.

I had forgotten about this until I read Sheila's post....

My parents had a volatile marriage. My father was not a good husband for the first several years and he had a really bad temper.
Mom and Dad fought...a LOT.

When I was 6 or 7, they decided to separate. The problem was that we were in Mississippi at the time. My parents, for some God-forsaken reason, had decided to uproot the family and leave Texas. We got to Mississippi and within a year they're separated.
So, my dad moves back to Texas, leaving us in this poor, POOR state. I mean that literally and figuratively.
Before he left, he bought me a present. Apparently, when you abandon your child, it hurts less when you give her gifts.

The gift was a stuffed Cookie Monster doll. He had shaggy blue fur and big plastic googly eyes that rattled when you shook him.

I don't really remember much about what our homelife was like at that time. Kids are pretty self-involved or else they tend to block out the unpleasant things but I guess I missed my dad when he was gone and because he gave me Cookie Monster, that became my link to him.
I would lay in bed at night and talk to Cookie Monster but I was really talking to my dad.
I told him about my day, what I had for dinner, what happened at school, etc.
He would just sit there, staring at me with those freaking crazy eyes and listen.
I must have cried on him because his fur was hard and matted together from being wet in a few spots.

Cookie Monster and I were inseparable during that time. I cried because I couldn't take him to school with me but he'd be waiting on my bed when I got home. He ate dinner with me and he even played outside with me.

I have no idea how long this separation lasted but Dad finally realized that he missed us and asked my mom to come back to Texas.
We did.

I suppose I didn't need Cookie Monster after that because I have no memory of him after we moved back.

That was the last time Mom and Dad ever separated...until he died in 2004.

I wonder where that damn Monster is today?

Posted by De at July 13, 2006 04:36 PM | TrackBack