(And definitely I didn’t think about stuffed cows would work.)

When I was little, like I said, my mother bribed me all to hell with toys and such, to take my mind off my father being so… full of rage and the desire to control, or something. When I was really young, these were stuffed animals and My Little Ponies.

Man, I had a lot of stuffed animals. I arranged them in a wall all around me. When I was little, I was desperate to do things that might shield me from my father (and other things, like any kid). These things make no sense to adults, especially when I was younger than ten.

My father—I don’t know why to this day—eventually got rid of them all. I don’t know why. And then I didn’t have any until my mother started buying me bribery Beanie Babies in college. Man, I was abused all to hell, but I sure did have the most toys. Not that much of a comfort, really. Especially not after friends in college with psych degrees told me what the things most likely meant.

I am scared that my stuffed animals will at some point no longer comfort me, or that they’ll trigger me.

Fortunately, this is somewhat held off by the fact that I associate strongly and well with work, and work’s mascot is cow-based. Work was the first break I ever had from the gaping hole of meaning in my life after college and fleeing my parents… or something. So anything work-related has positive, warm aspects to me—except when it doesn’t; like any large company, sometimes the left hand and the right hand work at odds to each other. Hmm. Well, I should put it that my team is a warm, fuzzy aspect to me.

This could have bad repercussions down the road, I know. Permanence in any job is not guaranteed in this rough-and-tumble economy, and over five years of company-specific experience is not enough to necessarily save one from the chopper. However, I am technically a bargain and a dedicated worker, since I’m not well enough in the head to advance my career track; so I just stay in the lower rungs and gather knowledge and work 60-hour weeks when I can and suchlike.

It’s a living.

Also, cows.

Actually, probably I’ll have a good association with cows even if my association with my team is dissolved for some reason, as can happen and probably will at some point. I associate cows with the part of the Midwest that seems to grow them—and that was the part that gave me the initial partial freedom from my parents.

And so to bed.