Stuffed Animals and Law

This year I have been working in the Colonial Williamsburg Visitor Center book store where I assist customers in purchasing edification.  Because of scheduling needs, there are some days that I work in the gift shop instead. 

The gift shop has all sorts of trinkets and whirligigs and knick-knacks, ceramic dishes, ornaments, smelly soaps and the like.  I much prefer to sell customers sources of edification and knowledge in the bookstore than I do to sell customers dishes and smelly soaps in the gift shop.

I can’t help but wonder if these purchases are really necessary, that maybe this money could be used to educate some child in an inner-city community or feed a hungry mouth in a third-world country.  Though, I do recognize that if it were not for the dishes and smelly soaps, there wouldn’t be a Colonial Williamsburg and many more people would be unemployed (maybe myself?) and people wouldn’t be able to enjoy this rich national historic treasure.  So smelly soaps it is, I guess.

Part of working in the gift shop entails making sure the sale floor is stocked and orderly (the more obsessive compulsive, the better!).  And among the first things I do is to make sure that my fuzzy little stuffed animal friends are looking good—friends like Sally the Sheep and Prince the Dog, which is creepily modeled off of a dead dog carcass from the early 1900’s.

This all harkens back to my childhood.  My bedroom was filled with furry friends.  In fact, there was a time that there was barely enough room in my bed for me!

Every child dreams about what he wants to do for a career when he grows up.  Somewhere between physicist and pharmacist, I wanted to be a stuffed animal maker and have my own stuffed animal shop.

I ultimately decided on Law, but it was a close choice.