Feb. 12: How now, OCD cow

Help. Our house is overflowing with Webkinz.

Katie adopted five new ones on her birthday. FIVE! She actually got six, but one is the pet of the month for March and if she adopts it before March 1, she'll miss out on a bunch of special prizes. One cannot miss out on a bunch of special prizes, let me tell you.

I'm embarrassed to say how many of these critters we have now. It's a lot. It's too many. We entered double digits long ago. Yikes. It has also now become a family affair. I've got a few, Vic has one, even Darlene has one. The kids were begging to get one for Grandma Mary this past weekend but we never made it to the mall or she, too, would be a Webkinz gal. The actual stuffed animals are "borrowed" by K&J and we grown-ups never see them again, but the virtual ones are our very own. Sad, no?

Katie and Jack picked out a German shepherd for Victor. The real one is cute even though it looks nothing like a German shepherd. But the virtual one looks more like a Mexican wrestler than a dog. I call him Nacho Libre.


Vic named it Colonel Klink, the humor of which is totally lost on Katie and Jack, and spends way too many hours a week playing with the virtual version. He's hooked on the Battleship-type pirate ship game and Quizzy's Word Challenge. He's started collecting hats for the dog--a top hat, cowboy hat, "I'm the Wiz" style crown, rainbow wig, aviator hat, pirate hat, Marie Antoinette wig, and baseball caps and stocking caps. Most of the time Colonel Klink looks like a virtual member of the Village People as he wanders around shirtless in his fancy head gear (Vic thinks pants AND a shirt detract from the hats). It's funny and freakish all at the same time. Vic has been humming "YMCA" quite a bit more than usual, which is also quite funny and quite freakish.

I got February's pet of the month, a cow, and named it T-Bone*. I quickly decided he's not my favorite Webkinz because he's next to impossible to feed. The other animals usually get stuff that's pretty filling, like burgers and nachos and lasagna, so it's easy to satisfy their hunger. But Vic says I'm not allowed to feed T-Bone meat because that would make T-Bone a cannibal. Do you know how many fruits and vegetables I have to buy to fill up that friggin' cow? Sheesh. I'm going broke (virtually).

Ever since I found the Marie Antoinette wig in the Webkinz Curio Shop, I check it frequently for more rare and unique items. Last week I found gift box shoes, which are exactly what they sound like--shoes that look like presents. I thought they seemed very Howard-Hughes-Kleenex-box, and I had to have them, because how funny is that? T-Bone is quite the festive clean-freak cow, though I assure you that if he had fingernails and/or toenails and I could clip them, I certainly would.

Perhaps the best news from the Manullang Webkinz World is that we were finally able to talk Jack into moving the toilet out of his living room and into its own very special room. Whew.

No doubt my next post will be written by one of the Webkinz themselves. Yes, we are in that much risk of takeover.

This is no virtual addiction, people. It's the real thing. Ye be warned.

*I wanted to name it Bovine Carr for your amusement, Kathy and Lori, but, well, I didn't.