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I spoke to my mother today and she was upset that I hadn& #39;t immediately shared some news that -- I must stress -- is not important in the least. I am going to share it right now, though. If you feel the same way she does, you are absolutely welcome to shout it from the rooftops.
I hope you all like platypuses!
When I was around six or seven, my mother took me on a trip to the zoo. I think it was tied to a doctor& #39;s appointment or something, because I don& #39;t remember either of my brothers being there. This was the National Zoo in DC, where I grew up.
At the time, I had never heard of a platypus and, unfortunately, the zoo didn& #39;t have one. They don& #39;t tend to live in captivity, I would soon learn. But the zoo did have a great big stuffed one! When I saw it, I thought it was the greatest thing I had ever seen.
I wasn& #39;t allowed to get the big one, but I did get a little one that I absolutely loved and named Pus (pronounced Puss!) I *think* this was because, when I had it say hello to my mother in the car on the ride home, she replied, "Hello, & #39;Pus."
What I didn& #39;t know was that my mother -- who is very, very good at this sort of thing -- had secretly managed to purchase the very large platypus -- soon named Plato -- right under my nose. I received him sometime later as a birthday present and he became my most cherished toy.
I devoured facts about platypuses and also cherished an old National Geographic issue that had an article about them along with black & white photos. When I was in first grade, my mother sewed me a platypus Halloween costume complete with a fabric egg that I could put Pus inside.
"Platypuses are only one of two kinds of mammals that lay eggs and male platypuses are venomous," I would tell everyone, a droopy platypus nose hanging down over my mouth.
"Is it platypuses or platypi?" every adult would ask me as though it were a really funny question.
(Either is okay.)
(Either is okay.)
I& #39;m not sure if any photos exist of the costume, but here& #39;s a birthday party where my parents got me a truly gargantuan platypus cake.
At this point, I would like to introduce Pus who, I& #39;m afraid, has been living in an attic in Maryland up until last Christmas.
Pus lost one of his front legs decades ago, the result of a vicious bloodhound attack.
Some years passed and I continued to love platypuses. I received this chubby one as a birthday present and then the smaller version for Christmas. A platypus family was born and, soon, became an *international* platypus family when the Lesnicks moved to France!
Because I had a peculiar Wes Anderson childhood, this was not the first time Plato and Pus had been to France. In first grade, my family spent a month living in a hotel in Paris while my dad putting the "I" in IBM. That& #39;s exactly what brought us back when I was in fifth grade.
This time, we lived in a town in the south of France called Aix-en-Provence and it was going to be for the foreseeable future (which ended up being about 14 months). It was an incredible experience that I don& #39;t think I appreciated as much as I should have.
School was weird. My mother would take me and both my brothers to a bus stop in town where a tiny schoolbus would pick us up and take us to an international school ( @CIPECSCHOOL!) with classes taught in both French and English.
My older brother, @Banditloaf, would be taken away to a larger middle school/high school campus while my younger brother, @GLesnick, and I would take another bus to a smaller series of satellite classrooms in the woods.
It was there that we shared a combined third through fifth grade curriculum with all sorts of crazy elements for a kid used to American public schools. But I& #39;m losing track of the platypuses!
One day, I decided to bring Plato to school for show and tell. I was a little nervous because there were some genuine bullies on our & #39;playground& #39; (a small clearing on the edge of the woods with a rabbit hutch and two bunnies named Vanille and Chocolat).
But that wasn& #39;t a problem at all! The class loved Plato and it was super fun to have him at school. Unfortunately, tragedy struck later that day.
To get home from school (which lasted until the evening, except on Wednesdays, which was a half day), a bus would take Gavin and I to meet Ben and then another bus would take us into town. We would then meet at Aix& #39;s big central fountain and take a public bus home.
Somewhere along the way, Plato was lost. I remember the moment I realized that he hadn& #39;t come home and feeling utter horror. My parents tried to reach out to the bus company, but to no avail.
I remember one night in particular just crying to myself in bed and mentally combining the loss of Plato with the thought that STAR TREK was over* as the single worst pairing of events that had ever happened to anyone.
(*The recently released STAR TREK VI was supposed to be the last movie and my brother had a magazine that said that TNG would be coming to an end soon. When a friend of his wrote a letter and mentioned DS9, we had no clue what he was talking about and had all sorts of theories.)
Anyway, time passed. We moved back to America and I started middle school. I still liked platypuses a lot, but cared less about stuffed animals. Still, now and then I would get them as Christmas presents from family.
This beanbagish fellow was a gift from my sister @hissthemovie (born in the post-Plato era) and he has lived with me in LA for some time.
Ever since eBay became a thing, I would try to search for Plato, but didn& #39;t have much luck. Outside of knowing that he was sold at a zoo in the late 80s, there wasn& #39;t much to go on and none of the results ever looked right.
While I wasn& #39;t exactly invested in it, the platypus family sort of grew, almost without me. Every now and then, another platypus would be given as a Christmas gift and, not really being able to justify having space for it in LA, I would add it to a pile in the attic.
Last December, something happened that led me to dig Pus and the big and little pair out of the attic. My mother, hearing the news, quickly sent me the rest (even more than I had thought!)
Just before flying home for Christmas, I did a search on eBay for "Plush platypus" for the first time in a year or more. I was used to getting a LOT of results and none of them being right.
