Stinky Mouse

I want to make an accusation:
It was Scott,
In the kitchen
With the Febreze.

For those who don’t remember wasting rainy Saturdays trying to develop their deductive logic skills with the help of the Parker Brothers, that's a reference to the boardgame Clue.

The victim in this case was Stinky Mouse.

I have blogged about Hui-Hui’s predilection for “thumb snuckers” before. For the most part he’s not terribly picky about a specific toy to cuddle, but over the last couple months he has developed a preference for one particular stuffed animal. This little favorite has come to be known as “Stinky Mouse”. Actually most of the stuffed animals that get any regular rotation as a “snucker” start to take on a distinct odor. Stinky Mouse by virtue of his heavy use had become quite smelly. I wanted to wash Stinky Mouse, but he couldn’t go in the washing machine because he had beans inside him, his label said to “surface wash, air dry”. I suggested we spray him down with Febreze. Tina protested this idea very strongly. She hates the smell of Febreze. My argument was that Febreze kills bacteria and I was pretty sure that bacteria was what was giving Stinky Mouse his unique aroma. Tina said if I sprayed him with Febreze that Hui-Hui wouldn’t like him anymore. I was willing to risk it. I looked up the Febreze website to make sure it was safe to use on children’s toys. It seemed perfectly harmless, so I lightly misted him down and let him dry overnight.

The next morning Stinky Mouse was a new man. His stink was gone. He did have a slight cologne quality to him, but it wasn’t heavy and you could tell this wasn’t masking the old smell. You couldn’t hope to mask that. But not only was his smell gone, so was his mojo. Hui-Hui would have nothing to do with him. It wasn’t like this was a big tragedy. There’s plenty of stuffed animals he’s more than happy to snucker up with. But still I felt bad. Stinky Mouse had become a bit of a sidekick to Hui-Hui.

Tina, of course, put everything right again, She took Hui-Hui to the store and found Stinky Mouse 2.0. As you can see in the photos below he is every bit as serviceable as his predecessor was before I did him in. The stink is coming on nicely and should be at full potency in no time.