A Christmas Story

We now interrupt your regularly scheduled triathlon blog.....

Everyone has "those" gifts they remember as kids. The "must have" holiday gift that you just had to have. My sister's was the "Hundred Dollar Car". It wasn't actually $100, but she asked for it and never got one. Years later, she bought one (complete with gas pump) for my daughter.

So one of my "must haves" was a Cabbage Patch Kid. This was the year they were the hot item to have (probably 1984 or so...I was 8). Apparently my parents had difficulty getting one, so they went for a substitute. Imagine Ralphie opening a Red Rider BeeBee Gun case to find a water gun inside...I got a "Cabbage Patch Kid" who was a few shades too pale, with a soft rather than hard face, and she was a bit bigger than the CPKs that my friends were getting. So here was the kicker....she came with a birth certificate. Like an authentic, green and white, signed by Xavier Roberts himself (the guy who discovered the cabbage patch) birth certificate. How is that possible? Of course everyone else knew she wasn't a real CPK, but I played with her and at some point down the road got a "real" CPK. The funny part? I still remember the name of my "Fake" CPK, but not the real one. (As I type this I realize CPK usually means "California Pizza Kitchen" around here).

Most Cabbage Patch Kids had names like "Abbey Olivia" and "Autumn Summer". Mine was named "Vanessa Munching". WTH kind of middle name is "Munching"? But I played with her...and almost 30 years later I still remember her.

Years later, my Dad told me the story. He borrowed the birth certificate from the legit CPK bought by the neighbor for my good friend Nadia, went to the store and Xeroxed it, whited out the name, copied it again, typed in the new name, and colored it in by hand. Whew! Guess what he was drinking while he did this?

Know who the bottler is? Van Munching and Company!!!! Hearing this story years later, I so wish I had saved that "Vanessa Munching" birth certificate.