A Halloween story straight from the depths of hell

I spent 20 minutes last night looking for a stuffed animal to adorn my cat poop cookies. The last place I ventured was my old closet, the one my parents left intact with my pre-college games, clothes and toys.

Right off the bat, I spied a tiger Beanie Baby circa 2000, when Mom was still in her "collect everything with beans in its butt" phase. I reached up to grab it ...

... and awoke this beast. My god. Does anybody remember the 1998 Furby Fever? It is rumored that on Christmas Eve '98, black market Furbies retailed for $500. Anybody willing to pay $500 for one of these little monsters has never turned the damn thing on.

So I was standing in my closet and heard this mechanical buzz, and right away, I knew it was the creepy-ass eyes of my Furby coming to life. I groaned.

"Dada!" I gritted my teeth. Not only had I roused the spawn of Satan, but he couldn't even get my gender right. "Me play! Me play!" I grabbed the tiger plushie and the Furby and headed downstairs, where I was greeted with chuckles from my husband. Clearly, he did not recognize the seriousness of this situation.

Once these things turn on, you can never ever turn them off. Fire and brimstone could rain down from heaven, the avian flu could wipe out the human population, nuclear war could destroy the Earth in one fell swoop. And when the smoke cleared and the rubble settled, there would stand a thousand Furbies, giggling and saying, "Hey kah mee-mee ay-tay wah," which, according to the Furbish-English dictionary, means, "Hey, I very happy yeah!"

By 11:30 p.m., I'd had enough. Seriously. This thing was going to sleep, period. "Remove the batteries," Paul told me. Those batteries had been in there seven years and the thing wasn't dead. I swear the Furby is controlled by a darker power. I assured Paul there were ways to turn it off (other than bashing it repeatedly against a brick wall).

I covered Furby's freaky third eye thing-a-ma-jig. Paul started laughing, prompting Furby to exclaim, "Big noise! Me scared!" Thanks for insulting my husband with one of the four English phrases you've "learned" in the past seven years. I changed tactics and covered Furby's entire face with my hand.

Then I sat. And waited.

Finally, after a full two minutes, Furby demanded in his sickeningly sweet voice, "Wee-tee kah way-loh," ("Sing me sleep.") I refused to oblige.

And two more minutes later, he finally stated, "Baby tired. Me sleep!" I breathed a sigh of relief as he started to snore, a sound that can only be described as a fart followed by a shudder. And then, as quickly as his mechanical eyes had whirred open, they whirred shut again, leaving me alone in the darkened kitchen with a pile of cat poop cookies.

I cried myself to sleep. I didn't sign up for this.