I once retrieved a sock monkey from the garbage. I was in the 12th grade at the time so the first time I saw it, I didn't get it because it's embarassing rescuing stuffed animals from the trash. It was in the alley sitting next to the bins of a house I'd pass on my way to school. I think that the house had recently had a garage sale and then they threw out stuff that didn't sell.

But I thought about that monkey sitting out there cold and alone. What if it rains? It will get ruined. And it's headed off to the dump anyway.

So the next day, I saw that monkey again on my way to school. I couldn't get it because I was going to school and there was no room in my bag. I don't think that I even had a bag.

But on my way home, after thinking about that monkey all day and hoping that the garbagemen hadn't yet picked it up, I rushed back to that house. Fortunately, there was that sock monkey. I looked around and sneakily picked him up so as not to attract any attention. Then I bundled him into my coat and rushed home.

Showed him to my mother and sister and they were a bit amused by it but it was no problem. I was able to display the monkey atop my closet. Bear in mind, that my mother had violently banished my entire stuffed animal collection to the damp, moldy basement, dooming them to rot. But the monkey was allowed to stay.

I never named him. I was too old for that. Never played with him either. But I liked having him around.

That monkey was still on my closet when I came to London ten years later. It very well may be in the basement and destroyed by now, though. Still, I gave him another ten years.