To: Ash
From: Crecente
Re: Don't Let Totoro Die, We Can Wash Him

How funny... and sweet. When I was a kid we did a lot of global traveling. My constant traveling companion was a Winnie the Pooh. I took him with me where ever I went, even to Bangkok, Thailand when we moved there when I turned 5. A year or so into our stay there, living in a private gated compound with families of CIA agents and ambassadors, my older brother decided he'd had just about enough of me. He decided the best way to get rid of me was to send me packing to my grandparents, who lived in Georgia. So he helped me pack my bag, provided me spending money (of the Monopoly brand) and a traveling companion, my faithful Winnie the Pooh. Walking me out the door, he headed me toward the gate and the drunken guard, watching as I slipped through and into the flow of downtown Bangkok. Fortunately the guard awoke from his stupor and grabbed me before I managed to wave down a cab, a skill I had inexplicably developed during my short stay in the country.

When my parents got back home later that afternoon they were told all about it, by a very tearful Brian who pointed out that the guard, I suppose as payment, had confiscated my Winnie the Pooh. My dad marched me down to the small guard shack to retrieve the Pooh, but when we arrived at the open doorway we discovered the guard curled in a ball on his chair, a near-empty glass bottle in one hand and my wide-eyed Pooh wrapped in the sleeping guard's arms, a cherub-like smile on his face. The guard's not Pooh, I'm pretty sure Pooh was silently screaming his little stuffed head off.

We never got my Winnie back... I suppose there are some things worse than sewer water and fleas.

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