Thomas has to leave the room every time the Furby commercial comes on. And it's not even because I'm trying to convince him that there is no way that thing can possibly be worth that much of my hard earned money. (Although seriously? There is no way I would pay that much for that thing. If you are planning to, I'm not judging you, I'm just saying that's too much for something they are gonna play with for 30 hours and then be over it)
No, if it's one of my boys and a phobia, you know there has to be some hilarious back story to it. Because, let's face it, I am pretty darn good at creating ridiculous phobias in my children!
So what happened was, when Thomas and Steven were toddlers (probably around 3 and 4), we drug down all my old stuffed animals from the attic. And in the bin was my old Furby. Steven of course fell in love with it because it was a stuffed animal. Yes, he has very high standards for judging stuffed animals to love and never part with. Something along of the lines of a) is it somewhat soft and b) do I already own the exact same thing (note - variations of even the slightest degree from an already owned and loved stuffed animal qualify it as "different" and therefore eligible for being adopted into the stuffed animal herd).
Anyway, we tried to make Furby work again. Cleaned the contacts, new batteries, I think my Dad might have even gotten into its "guts" and worked on the circuit board in an effort to make Furby work. But Furby just wasn't having it after a decade of living in a Rubbermaid bin in the attic. So we resigned ourselves to the fact that Furby just wasn't going to do cool stuff and went on about life.
But Furby had other plans.
At some point we noticed that Thomas was avoiding the room that Furby (Now renamed "Kirby", sorry to my dear cousin Kirby who is not, in any way evil) now lived in. And that, in fact, he would walk around the dresser and distance himself as far as possible from Kirby at all times. Kirby was living in my kids' playroom over at Nona and PawPaw's house. We call it "The Land of Yes" for a reason, so there were any number of things on that dresser that could have been the source of the phobia. But it was pretty much confirmed that Kirby was the root of the problem when Steven got it down to play with and Thomas came running out of the room like a cat on a 3am crack high.
Well if you know Steven, you know what happened next.
Did my darling sweet child throw Kirby in the garbage? Stuff him in a pillowcase? Vow to rid the world of Kirby and his evilness?
Nope.
He proceeded to goad Thomas with Kirby every chance he got. Hide behind the door and stick Kirby out as Thomas walked in? Check! Put Kirby in Thomas' bag of toys? Check! Walk up behind Thomas and put Kirby on Thomas' shoulder? Check!
Now of course, wonderful parent that I am, I think that the whole "Thomas is afraid of a dead Furby" phobia is hilarious. And while I certainly didn't encourage Steven's mission to scar his brother for life, I probably could have done a little more to DIScourage it (translation: if I hadn't been laughing so dang hard, Steven probably would have stopped after a couple days of scares).
Now you are probably wondering why Thomas was freaking out over a dead Furby. I mean yeah, it has those freaky eyes and such, but dead Furbys from the 90's have closed eyes. I just chalked it up to it being one of Thomas' "things" and left it at that.
Then we discovered the REAL problem.
One day my mom was sitting in her living room and heard singing coming from the playroom. The kids were not there, and hadn't been there for a day or two. She went in to investigate. There was Kirby, rocking back and forth, humming a little tune to himself, all WITHOUT having been activated. Kirby was working again all right, but only when KIRBY wanted to work. You couldn't turn him on, and you couldn't turn him off. He would just spontaneously do his Kirby thing.
Imagine you are about 4 years old. You are spending the night with your grandparents. And in the middle of the night, this freaking thing on a dresser high above your little head starts singing, swaying back and forth, and talking in some unknown language. Well no wonder the kid was terrified of it!
He was probably at least 7 before he could even look at that thing without freaking out.
At least that's ONE item he WON'T be begging for at Christmas! Though I wouldn't put it past Steven to ask for one just to torture him with it....