recently i have to come realise this whole incident continues to sit hunched over like some crippled bit of crumpled paper in my head. so i'll give it berth (or birth) here. a bit of my stupid past. baby blue is the ugliest doll i have ever seen, and is the object of much heartache in my home. let me tell you about baby blue. remember at school how they made you tote around a doll (or egg)? we got a doll (better than a damn egg i suppose). i named him baby blue, which set me off on a bad foot. the instructor said no, name it a real name. i became surly of course being a teenager.  this was at church too, and some of the ass kissers named their babes after biblical characters and got extra points. i wasn't falling for it. no. i had been raised as a non christian, and was experimenting, but i had believed it could be right for me. i was wrong. i was already in the process of loosing faith, and being disillusioned by the favouritism i saw at work. baby blue he was. and these damn dolls cried when you needed to do something for them. feed them whatever. regardless of anything i did for the little ingrate, he kept crying. so i stuffed him in a blanket and bunged him under the bed until his battery finally went dead. i had never been so relieved. i brought him back, saying look how content he is, he never cries but was found out. i'd murdered him. my youth group guy yelled at me, saying if it were a real baby, i'd be in jail. well, duh. at the time my mum was sick and i was raising my younger siblings, including an actual baby, so i didn't see taking care of a doll as paramount. i never stuffed one of *them* under the bed, nor have i ever, regardless of how tempting it may have been at the time. but baby blue was different. he deserved it. i hated him. and best yet, he was fake, so i *could*.  he was the symbol of an uncaring church/society with unrealistic expectations, and me feeling trapped by responsibilities above someone of my young age. they knew mum was ill, that i was on my own, but never once offered to help. because they were too busy blowing their own horns. don't think i believe all christians are that way, i know it isn't true, but the loud ones sure are. so baby blue was my symbol of religion at the time. i killed it and became temporarily an atheist, until i found something else i liked. later the youth group guy admitted that some of the babies were broken, and mine wasn't working right. he thought it would 'help me learn patience'. patience as i kept up my schoolwork and cared for my family and baby-sat neighbour kids to help buy medicine while my father worked extra hours to keep mum in the drugs she needed so desperately? i knew mountains of patience. aeons of waiting. trust me. a doll wasn't going to teach me more than life did. and the youth group guy? he unwittingly taught me not to trust people on the basis of their religion or claims of good will. sad story huh? it isn't. that was a valuable lesson. one i needed. we all change. and hopefully learn through it and adversity. and everyone should have someone they can bend to their whims. mine was baby blue. the little bastard.