Stuffed Syphillis??

So - today we had a terribly mushy awesome family day. There's been some trouble with our hockey team and it was kind of annoying and upsetting but we left all that behind and drove up to the city. The kids got Build-A-Bear gift cards for Christmas and they've been wanting to have one for years but with four kids...its an expensive day. Finally - we made it, gift cards in hand!

Very cool store - the kids pick out a 'shell' and then help stuff the bear using this big machine with fluff floating around inside it. They place in a bar code tag so that if the bear is ever lost, it can be brought back to BAB and they will mail it back home. They pick a heart and make a wish on it and place it inside their stuffy before its sewed up. They got to pick out an outfit and one accessory and then the put information about the stuffy into a computer and a birth certificate was waiting at the cash register when you went to pay! After the kids had their animals boxed up (in an appropriate little house), I sent them to stand off to the side and wait for me to finish paying. I looked over and say my eldest leading them through the bear promise posted on the wall. It was so over the top sweet my heart almost broke.

Now I know - you're thinking - but wth does this have to do with stuffed syphillis??

Well - after the BAB store, we wandered down to a very cool toy store, the kind that sells all different kind of toys, many educational. As we were leaving I noticed a box of little stuffies. I picked them up on a whim and realized they were stuffed bacteria! How cool I thought. Right up my alley.

So I set about a challenge for myself to try and figure out what they were before reading the tag. I would think 'huh, maybe staph?' and sure enough the tag said - "Flesh Eating Disease / Staphylococcus". Others were Cough/ Bordetella pertussis - now, that's not just an ordinary cough...that's whooping cough, but ok. I'll accept it. or Sore Throat / Streptococcus - yep. I agree.

But then I picked one up and thought - huh. That looks like a spirochete! I wonder what disease they are representing here??

On the tag, they had labelled it "Syphillis".

Now... how exactly would that go over if you brought it to a child's birthday party? "Can you believe that little girl gave him Syphillis?" or the dilemma when you are out in public and your three year old whines "Mommy, I want Syphillis!!" or its attached to your teenager's backpack and as they board the bus they say to their friend, "hey, will you hold my syphillis?"

roflmao.

I want syphillis. I never did buy it. I'm waiting for the "SYPHILLIS - HALF OFF SALE!!!"

Such a different experience than the sacchrine (but genuinely lovely) time at BAB.