I remember when these ‘fluffies’ first made it into the news. At first everyone
was crazy about them. Then as time passed they became less and less enthusiastic,
mostly because of the shitting problem, until the feral ones got classified as
pests. However, for children, especially very young ones, fluffies didn’t just
stay popular, but as it went on and new models were developed, everyone went
buck wild. Including my sister, Kayla.
“Mum, dad, can we get a fluffy?” became her most iconic phrase. It was cute…
For the first 4 months, then it was just annoying. She just wouldn’t shut up about
it, even when they offered to buy her a hamster, a guinea pig, a gerbil… None
of the offers were accepted though.
“But you’re too small for a pet that size!” they argued.
“But I want one so baaaaaaad!” she’d always say. If we were lucky, she wouldn’t
throw a hissy fit afterwards.
One day, however, the solution came to them in the form of a TV commercial:
It started showing off a red fluffy smiling for the camera and playing in it’s
safe room. “Hewwo! Fwuffy am gud fwuffy! Am bestest fow smol daddeh ow smol
mummah!”
A disembodied voice would announce “Presenting an all new model of fluffy:
The Micro! With it’s reduced size and adjusted metabolism, it is perfect for a
kid to learn how to take care of”
The camera zoomed out, revealing the actual size of the safe room, a little
bigger than a shoe box, with a kid around age 10 or 11 looking inside and
smiling next to it. The fluffy couldn’t have been bigger than a small mouse
then.
“The reduced size makes it perfectly safe to store in smaller, more easily
managed places, like this Hasbio brand micro saferoom. It doesn’t leave a mess
after itself and is programmed to be more docile, lifting the burden of having
to train them yourself!”
There. It. Was. It was like an epiphany. At the time, my mum and dad were
cooking dinner while me and my sister were in our bedrooms. As we were having
dinner later that evening, the broken record started playing again: “Mum, dad,
I’ve been doing well in school, can I have a fluffy?”. I was about to prepare
for another argument, but to my surprise, and frankly hers as well, they both
said “Sure”. It was clear Kayla wasn’t prepared for such a response, because
she went silent, staring blankly at infinity before letting out an excited
scream and starting to run around the house. “You can have one for your
birthday, sweetie”. Hoo boy…
Fast forward a couple months to Kayla’s birthday. The daily staple has shifted
from ‘Want Fluffy!’ to ‘Want Birthday!’. It’s a change, I suppose.
Kayla and co have been running around the house playing for a while now. I’ve
been helping the adults set everything up, including picking up the micro
fluffy, or rather, micro fluffIES, since apparently she’s getting two of them
now, complete with two micro saferooms and everything they’ll need.
Dad asked me to go pick up the fluffies and everything else to the local
fluffmart, so I take his keys and get on his car. They only have a couple micros
left, so I just pick them up at random, a white one and a blue one. According to
the clerk lady, once you name them, that name sticks forever, so they don’t have
one yet. I let them say goodbye to their ‘bwuddahs’ and ‘sissies’ (man, why do
they speak like toddlers?), and pick them up. Both of them are small enough to
fit together in my palm, but I’ll be carrying them in one of those cage things
they use to transport pets.
I load all the stuff in dad’s car, making sure the two fluffies are firmly
fastened in the passenger seat, and drive away, all the while thinking to myself
“There’s something fishy in here”.
“Yu am nyu daddeh?” I hear one of them say
“What? Hell no! I can’t take care of you”
“Den, wai taek fwuffy and fwuffy?”
“Because you guys are a gift for my sister, she’s been pestering everyone that
she wants a fluffy and now… Wait a minute, why am I talking to you?! Just shut
up until we get there, okay?”
An hour or so later, we’ve sung happy birthday, ate cake, played the piñata, and
finally got to the presents. Kayla is twitching in excitement, literally, which
has me a little concerned. She rushes towards the boxes, and identifies the one
with fluffies inside, a red one with yellow dots scattered all over. To be fair
it’s also the only one crying out “Hu hu hu! Scawy dawkies!”. She yelps in
excitement yet again and throws the lid across the room.
“Gasp It’s so cuteeeeeee! Aaaahhhhhhh!”.
Hang on a second, ‘it’?
She grabs the content of the box: one (1) white fluffy. She then tosses the rest
of the box with the lid.
“Wait, where’s the other one?” I walk up to my dad and ask him.
And with a devilish grin, he presents me with my own yelping red box.
Oh shit…
