Hey, remember the Great Rubber Naked Mole Rat Search of Aught-Four? (Hey, remember when I was really engaged with this blog?) Over the years I have gotten many, many e-mails asking me to duplicate my efforts and find the writer their own replacement. I always gently decline but promise to keep an eye out.
I also got a great e-mail yesterday, which I am posting with permission of the sender because it's touching and funny:
Hi. I recently stumbled across the blog that you made years ago about trying to find the rubber naked mole rat replica, and I thought I should tell you my story, if 7 years later this email still reaches you. My name is Kelsey, and I got one of the rubber naked mole rats from the San Diego Zoo when I was approximately 11 years old, going into the 5th grade. I was moved in the 5th and 6th grade to a very tiny discriminating town in Pennsylvania, and I did not make friends. One day we had the assignment to write a book about an animal, and I brought in the naked mole rat, which I had named Pinky. Out of a joke I made Pinky answer a question for me, and from there that spiraled into the naked mole rat being my best friend for like a year and a half. Yup... I was that kid. I made Pinky talk, took her camping with me, took her in my pocket everywhere.... needless to say I didn't actually make any friends until I moved again...
I kept her for a few years after that commemorably awkward phase of my adolescence ended, but eventually in a fit of teenage remorse threw it away. At the age of 20 I actually kind of regret this now. While talking to a rubber toy at the age of 12 does not seem cute in the immediate retrospect, at this point in my life I'm more amused than anything else and I have a girlfriend who thinks it's the most adorable awkward phase ever. I was looking through the internet to buy another one, and I stumbled across your blog. I wanted to know if you ever got any other leads about getting one, it would be greatly appreciated. If not, I hope the story made you smile, and I'm glad you had success all those years ago on your quest.
Thanks, Kelsey! I promised her and I promise you, if I ever see those damn things again I am buying out the entire stock and sending a rubber naked mole rat to anyone who ever asked me about them.
I still have mine, by the way. He's doing fine. He lives on my bookshelf at work, and I love him as much as ever.