Oh, ew.

[phosfate]

Raggedy's hair now contains ribbon and strips of velour, and could, conceivably, turn out fucking awesome.

So last night I hauled Brown Bear and White Bear out of the basement. I decided to do Brown first, since he's most in need of help and has the simplest construction. Whipped out an ex-acto knife and looked for his main seam.

Turns out he's held together with fishing line. Oh, Christ, I would like to find out who invented invisible thread and biff them in the nuts with a bolster. Anyway, I opened him up (carefully). Then it was time to remove the stuffing.

His stuffing was a perfectly revolting mixture of ground newsprint and mushrooms. Okay, actually it was styrofoam chips and...waste fiber? Kapok? Asbestos? When I start erupting in tumours, we'll know. Horrible, horrible stuff. Mercifully it was free of swarming insects, gobs of mold, petrified baby mice, or flesh-eating scarabs. But they were there in my mind, and that's really all that matters. It took an hour and three plastic grocery bags to get it all out. Brown looked desperately unhappy, but I can't imagine he's not glad to be rid of that stuff.

Then I took him down and put him in the washing machine, apologizing the whole time. He was very small without stuffing. I felt horribly guilty, the way that you do when you have to put an old and loyal friend to possible death. Like Darth Vader throttling an Admiral, except, y'know, not evil.

He made it through okay, I think. He's on a hanger in the laundry room. Some of the more strained seams are now holes, thanks to the invisible thread's garotting action on the wet fabric. On the other hand, the giant hard patch from where Tasha spent an hour licking him is completely gone, and he only whiffs faintly of Cheer with Color Guard.

White bear waits on a chair in the dining room, observing all the goings-on and probably terrified out of his little mind. Heh.

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