When we were kids, almost everyone had a special item that they swore they would never give up. The one thing I never ever wanted to give up was my binky. I had three binkies and they were all special to me. I always had to have one of them with me wherever I went. From the time I was a tiny baby to that awful day when I was three; my binky was either in my mouth, in my pocket, or pinned to my shirt with a ribbon.

I was born in Las Vegas, Nevada, and I lived there until I was four years old. My dad’s family all lived in Vegas at the time too, so we would spend a lot of time with them. One of our favorite things to do was to go dune-buggying in the mountains. I loved to sit in the back seat of the dune buggy with my pink and blue sun hat and my cool-kid sunglasses screaming at the top of my lungs with excitement as we drove up and down the hills. If we were on a long stretch of dirt path, I would look over the edge and stare at the ground to see how fast we were going.

On one particular weekend, we were driving up a mountain to a camp site so we could camp there for the weekend. I had my favorite binky in my mouth. It was red, yellow, and blue. I was so pumped to be camping for the weekend, and I could hardly wait to get to the camp site. As I was watching the dirt road fly by I saw a huge lizard and thought, “Wow! I want to show Mom that thing!” So, I opened my mouth to tell her what I saw. Stupid move. The second I opened my mouth to scream, “Mom! I saw a huge lizard!” my binky fell out of my mouth and rolled onto the gritty dirt road. I immediately started crying and screaming for my dad to stop the dune buggy. My mom thought I was hurt or something, and she was frantically asking me questions to make sure I was okay. I most certainly was not okay. I couldn’t speak properly through my crying but somehow I managed to convince my dad to turn around and drive back a little way so I could look for my binky.

We looked on that stretch of road for a good half-hour, but found nothing. Eventually, my parents decided that we weren’t going to find it and decided to drive up to the camp site. I was absolutely devastated. Not only had that been my favorite binky, but it was the only one my mom brought with us for our trip. I was no longer excited for this camping trip, no longer excited for the weekend. We arrived at the camp site and set up our tent and bedding so we didn’t have to do it later. All I could think about was my poor binky, lost on that dirt road somewhere along the mountain.

That night I cried some more about my lost binky and my dad with his great sense of humor tried to cheer me up. He joked that when my binky had fallen out of my mouth, it rolled into the trees at the very edge of the road. He said that I should be happy because now some happy deer found it and was now sucking on my binky. All that did was upset me more than I already was. “I hate the deer!” I cried. “I want to find it and fight it to get my binky back!” The rest of the weekend went by in sort of a blur because my parents tried to keep me busy so I wouldn’t think about my binky.

Soon after that weekend, my parents decided to try and convince me that I was too old for a binky any more. My mom tried talking me out of wanting a binky by telling me that I was a big girl now, blah, blah, blah. My dad, however, got all sorts of ideas to try and make me give it up. He put a little bit of cayenne pepper powder on my pink and purple binky so I would get rid of it because it tasted bad. I like spicy foods, so that scheme had no effect on me. Next, he tried telling me that our cats grabbed it and dropped it in the toilet. I just took my binky, scrubbed it like crazy, and put it in my mouth again. He even went so far as to cut the end off of one of my binkies. I thought he was being annoying, but I also thought it was funny because he just couldn’t outsmart me. Since I had foiled all of his plans thus far, my dad decided to turn to more drastic measures.

One night while I was sleeping he took the staple remover to my blue and white binky and poked several holes in it. The next morning, I woke up and realized I had left my binky in the living room, so I got up to get it. My mom and dad were already awake, and my dad was cooking breakfast. I asked my mom where my binky was, and with a slightly guilty smile she told me it was on the counter. The minute I put by precious binky in my mouth, I knew something was wrong. “Why are there a bunch of holes in my binky?” I inquired angrily. My dad, keeping his face completely straight and maybe even a little fake sympathetic, slowly explained to me that the rats had found my binky in the night and chewed it to death. Upon hearing this news I was so angry. Why had I left it in the living room last night instead of taking it to bed with me? Why had I left my binky out in the open where things could get to it? Being only three, I never even suspected my mom or dad of having anything to do with this binky incident. My little mind raced to find a logical explanation. Don’t be the rats, please, not the rats! How could Dad have made those holes? He couldn’t have! Oh, no! It WAS the rats! My heart sank as I realized that the only option left to explain the death of my binky was the rats. As I came to this realization, I became furious. I took my binky out of my mouth, ran into the main bathroom, and threw my binky into the trash. “Stupid binky!!” I screamed. I turned around and returned to the kitchen to eat my breakfast.
By that evening, I had calmed down and decided I wanted my binky back. My mom told me that it was gone because today was trash day (she actually took it out of the trash and kept it to give to me at my wedding). I was a little bit sad, but I decided that I could get over it because Mom was right and I was too old for a binky now.