My Attempts to find a Bernardo the Burrito Squishmallow To Use For A Claw Machine-Based Marriage Proposal - As Told in Text Messages To My Partner’s Best Friend (Which I Wrote As Though They Were Ships Logs)

Captains Log 10/14 4:24 PM (Tuesday) Conditions: Chilly and blustery. Barometer 29 and rising.

After a still 72 hours, contact has been made. Arrangements are progressing towards …

Ok this is stupid. 2 PM Saturday? Or is 3 pm better for you? We can meet up and hang/get lunch beforehand and make our way to Stanley’s? Golden Diner and/or fish ice cream cones on me. My friend Brandon might be joining.

Captains Log, Stardate -298128.42 (10/15 Wednesday)

Did you know Star Trek’s Stardate has an actual system? But apparently it changed more or less every series. I tried to use a website to make the above date but it’s probably bullshit.

Anyway the guy at the claw place was like “4 to 5 is my busiest time” and asked for an extra $100 which is fine as I am accepting that I am just setting money on fire at this point. “Nothin’s too good for my Potato” he grumbles around a heavily chewed stogie, dragging a hankie across his sweaty brow.

Location Status: CONFIRMED - STANLEYS CLAW MACHINES AT 4 PM ON SATURDAY

I have ordered four burrito plushies. One has disappeared on the way from California but the USPS claims it’s still coming, somehow. One should arrive tomorrow from Amazon but is a kind of too-small keychain for emergency use only. One person refused to do local pickup from eBay and another was in Elizabeth and abruptly cancelled the order when they realized they didn’t want to deal with local pickup. Options are hope the USPS comes through, way overpay for one on Amazon and hope their promises of 2nd day prime are true, or way way WAY overpay for a box set on Amazon and like return it when we’re done.

Plushie Status: ABSOLUTELY FUCKED

I have been too busy to pick a place for a cocktail after and will try to do that today. Also I’m unsure whether people can’t meet us at the claw machine place given I think that we’re doing a 30 min rental.

Afterparty Status: LIMBO

I should restate my last text to you last night: I am not going to force anyone else to do something that is not fun but that rule does not apply to me.

I remain your humble captain, as ever

Spain

Log Entry of the RMS Lollipop, Thursday October 17th, 2024 AD

TO: First Mate Donni

FROM: Captain Spain

RE: That Fucking Burrito Plushie

Acceptance. Not our strong suit, us Spains. We

[the ship was then capsized and sunk by a giant Stacy the Squid Squishmallow]

Day 37 (Friday Morning)

No sight of land, no drink of water that does not sting. I have forgotten the faces of my loved ones in the incessant beating of waves across the jetsam that I now call home. Penguins have an organ on their forehead that converts seawater to fresh water - a fact that does nothing but runs singsong loops in my head regardless. If I were a gull, I could fly away. If I were a penguin, I could rapturously suck down herring beneath the waves. Instead I am a pink emaciated thing floating atop the engine of my own demise. Fools. Them, me, and all.

I can still see his face when I close my eyes. So close and yet so far away. That empty smile. Taunting me. Ahab had his whale. I had my burrito plushie. So as it was and it will ever be.

My Attempts to Find a Burrito Plushie And Use It In A Marriage Proposal Last Week - Told In a Marginally Saner Way

The ring was done on Friday. I had only a little time to make any of this happen as I told Cecilla I’d be proposing sometime in October and every other weekend was spoken for.

I send emails Saturday to Stanley’s Claw Machines and Chinatown Fair trying to figure out if any of this cockamamie plan is actually doable. I never hear back from the former but the owner at Stanley’s replies quickly and we start hashing out details.

The burrito plushie, which I need to note that it has to be a burrito because her nickname for me is burrito, is supposed to arrive that day. It does not. Fine - it says it’s still coming and I’m sure it’ll pop up.

Tuesday I get on the phone with the guy from Stanley’s and make a deposit. I barely get any work done because I’m trying to send invites for drinks afterward and answer questions and whatnot. It seems that despite the seat of my pants nature of all this, it’s coming together.

Tuesday night rolls around. No plushie. USPS status hasn’t updated in more than a week. Fuck.

I place an order on eBay and beg for local pickup. Sorry nope order cancelled. Order on eBay from someone with local pickup listed in Elizabeth NJ. Far but doable, right? Guy decides he doesn’t want to deal with it, order cancelled out of nowhere.

None are listed with 1 day shipping on Amazon save for a keychain (which I order as a backup) and I doubt anything with 2 day shipping will arrive before the time I’d need to leave for Stanley’s on Friday.

No local toy store has a long discontinued but otherwise unremarkable squishmallow depicting a common Mexican restaurant order. I file a complaint with the USPS that contains this fact. It will accomplish nothing.

I send an email update to the group on Wednesday that includes something about asking for help finding this damn thing. Kira marches to Amazon and orders the one I didn’t think would arrive and also cost 3x the others. Brandon suggests that I push harder for local pickup on eBay so I message three people whose profiles suggest they are humans and not LLCs/dropshippers.

One has moved to Illinois and her location on eBay is wrong. One is leaving town that day but if I drop everything I can meet her at Penn Station at 5. One says they have it and can meet me the next day. I thank everyone for responding and make arrangements to meet the third guy in the LES the next afternoon on my way to Stanley’s.

Friday morning I wake up to a text saying he got his inventory numbers wrong and does not in fact have the burrito. I have never laughed this hard immediately upon waking before. I HAVE cursed this loud, though.

Morning progresses and I just shrug. I took a half day at work so I could go and finalize things and assume it’s the keychain guy at this point. At some point I decide to bike to Stanley’s because I feel like the exercise would provide some stress relief. Considering biking involves both the Manhattan Bridge and Chinatown, this is the statement of a man not in his right mind.

I’m taking a break from cleaning when the doorbell rings. “No freaking way” I think to myself.

I text Kira the above video and she replies THANKS JEFF BEZOS. I throw everything in my bag and pump my tires. On my way out, I check in with Aunt Tina and explain what’s going on. She says some version of “this all seems very you” to which I vigorously nod my agreement.

I make my way to the city and meet the owner Clem for the first time. I also meet his son Chiro and hear the story of how Stanley’s is named after HIS favorite squishmallow, Stanley the Panda. We discuss where to place the plushie and he suggests the machine with the Gudetamas, aka the Japanese extremely over everything anthropomorphized egg yolk that has become Cecilla’s spirit animal.

I was worried she might be confused because it’s her favorite of any here but Clem points out that means she’ll make a beeline for it. I stick the proposal note inside the hang tag, which is way too small because it was made for the keychain one, and head home to vacuum and mop and pass out for a bit. Then C comes to Brooklyn and we do our normal weekly date night things.

C wakes up with a cold because of course she does. We’re both exhausted and it’s weird that I can’t tell her why I’m exhausted but she just figures I had a rough week which was accurate enough. I tell her that being sick doesn’t get her out of getting fish cones with me in the city.

We go and I somehow find a way to kill time until it isn’t time to kill time anymore. This leads to confusion as I drag her away from a book store at 3:58 PM and frustration when I’m insisting on going inside the claw machine place when she’d rather get a cream puff at the corner. Everyone asked “what if she doesn’t want to go in or doesn’t go to that machine?” and I couldn’t come up with a response aside from “rocks fall, everybody dies.”

We veer that way but never quite arrive and she brightens up once we’re inside. Clem was right and she beelines for the Gudetama machine. I was right and she gets very excited about the burrito, even more excited when she wins it.

4:03 PM and we’re done so we kill time until people start showing up. Her best friend Donni is first to arrive and immediately starts doing C’s nails. People keep seeing us from the street and thinking there’s an event inside and Clem has to turn them away. More people arrive and some take advantage of the machine being on easy mode to snag a Gudetama plushie.

Drinks are had. Latin fusion is eaten. I wake up the next morning and my whole body hurts. The end, except absolutely not, but not thinking about that right now.

Kira and I have decided Jeff Bezos does not exist and is actually a Yokai

Please update your headcanon appropriately.

links

• Cabel Sassar of Panic Software with a ridiculous story that’s worth watching all the way through.

• I do not remember the last time I was this excited about a documentary but The World According To Allee Willis looks like it’s going to be amazing.

• You have to be a crochety old weirdo to be a baseball fan and no one is better suited than Ray Ratto to tell you about how much this World Series freaking sucks.

• Liz Tracy writes about the band Seafoam Walls who are good and you should listen to them.

• I used to joke that the only thing that mattered politically was that no one made anything more difficult for the mouth breathing NEW YAWKAZ who insist it’s their god given right to own cars but turns out I’m right and they are finally saying the quiet part out loud:

  

• While we’re here you can still submit testimony RE: City of Yes here: landusetestimony@council.nyc.gov Mine referenced Paladino by name.

• Intuit’s Comms: That podcast interview question was extremely unflattering and we demand you remove it. The Verge: lololololol no and now we’re putting that part front and center (video here)

Closing Thought:

Ok back to norbal.

Sincerely,

John Spain

Burritoyancé