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Barge's Adventure
11 years ago
General
Well, Barge made his first appearance outside of my house. I ended up taking him to my old college to visit some friends. I learned several things on this little excursion. The first being that Barge, will in fact, fit in my trunk in a partially deflated state. Since I don't own a good air pump yet, I figured my best bet was just to not deflate him entirely and inflate him by mouth when I got there. Hopefully the moisture from that one time didn't do too much damage.
When I finally decided to get him out, I aired him up beside my car on a blanket. Unfortunately it was a bit cold and Barge's vinyl was a bit stiff so I only inflated him up enough to where he would stand in hopes that, when heated up in the student center, he would be properly inflated. I took him over but was surprised that many folks didn't pay him much mind. Honestly this is one of the reasons I love my college. Between sword club, the quiditch team, and a college president named professor godzilla (he's written books on the big lizard and has an enormous collection), a giant blue dragon wasn't entirely out of place hehehe.
Once in the student center, one of my friends just shook his head while most of the others asked a couple of questions. What I had forgotten was that I was in a high traffic area (by my small colleges standards anyway) and dinner had just ended. Before I knew it I had all sorts of people taking selfies and giving Barge hugs. One group of girls had to apologize for impulse hugging the big guy and proceeding to take pictures without asking. I was mostly all right with this since they weren't doing any harm and I'm not concerned with pictures or anything. My protective side did come out with a few friends that wanted to punch him in the nose like a bop bag. I ended up catching his hand and explaining exactly how rare Barge really was (I would have done the same for my common toys as well since I hate seeing them hurt as well). After that they were a lot more gentle. It's a bit of a shame I probably couldn't explain exactly how attached I really am to these critters hehehe.
I also took him to several friends apartments while I was there. The first group of people had already seen my pictures (I drew up the courage to actually post about him on FB) of him. Once inside, he got some more love and attention. My friends already had a few inflate things inside too. They had an inflatable unicorn head on the wall (which they had actually repaired at one point due to heat expansion causing a small split) and one of the jets small dinos in the corner. I ended up introducing them to the wonders of puffypaws while I was there and explained custom toy creation.
I ended the night at some other friends apartment since they also wanted to see the big guy in person. He received even more love there but he was upstaged by the new smash bros. game. Anyway, after a while I deflated him and put him back in the trunk and then went home. Luckily, other than a few minor paint blemishes (Barge is a pain to fit through a door, even partially deflated) he came out of all this unharmed.
I guess to finish things up I forgot to add a song for musical monday yesterday. I'll probably start just doing one song instead of whatever it was since that's just silly. This time it's Gaur Plains from Xenoblade Chronicles. In this game, the whole world that exists is on two enormous titans named the Bionis and Mechonis. This theme plays when you reach the Bionis's Leg and is one of the first areas where the game really opens up. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xweRl4LZlmo
When I finally decided to get him out, I aired him up beside my car on a blanket. Unfortunately it was a bit cold and Barge's vinyl was a bit stiff so I only inflated him up enough to where he would stand in hopes that, when heated up in the student center, he would be properly inflated. I took him over but was surprised that many folks didn't pay him much mind. Honestly this is one of the reasons I love my college. Between sword club, the quiditch team, and a college president named professor godzilla (he's written books on the big lizard and has an enormous collection), a giant blue dragon wasn't entirely out of place hehehe.
Once in the student center, one of my friends just shook his head while most of the others asked a couple of questions. What I had forgotten was that I was in a high traffic area (by my small colleges standards anyway) and dinner had just ended. Before I knew it I had all sorts of people taking selfies and giving Barge hugs. One group of girls had to apologize for impulse hugging the big guy and proceeding to take pictures without asking. I was mostly all right with this since they weren't doing any harm and I'm not concerned with pictures or anything. My protective side did come out with a few friends that wanted to punch him in the nose like a bop bag. I ended up catching his hand and explaining exactly how rare Barge really was (I would have done the same for my common toys as well since I hate seeing them hurt as well). After that they were a lot more gentle. It's a bit of a shame I probably couldn't explain exactly how attached I really am to these critters hehehe.
I also took him to several friends apartments while I was there. The first group of people had already seen my pictures (I drew up the courage to actually post about him on FB) of him. Once inside, he got some more love and attention. My friends already had a few inflate things inside too. They had an inflatable unicorn head on the wall (which they had actually repaired at one point due to heat expansion causing a small split) and one of the jets small dinos in the corner. I ended up introducing them to the wonders of puffypaws while I was there and explained custom toy creation.
I ended the night at some other friends apartment since they also wanted to see the big guy in person. He received even more love there but he was upstaged by the new smash bros. game. Anyway, after a while I deflated him and put him back in the trunk and then went home. Luckily, other than a few minor paint blemishes (Barge is a pain to fit through a door, even partially deflated) he came out of all this unharmed.
I guess to finish things up I forgot to add a song for musical monday yesterday. I'll probably start just doing one song instead of whatever it was since that's just silly. This time it's Gaur Plains from Xenoblade Chronicles. In this game, the whole world that exists is on two enormous titans named the Bionis and Mechonis. This theme plays when you reach the Bionis's Leg and is one of the first areas where the game really opens up. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xweRl4LZlmo
Part one: the college
Hope he will have some other adventures with (hopfully) Good endings!
But all in all it sounds like you had fun introducing him to people, and getting to show him off to everyone. I wish I had the courage to bring Holly, or Alex, or Spark out in public to show off, except for cons where it's kind of a norm lol.
Dawww, I'd suggest doing so in a controlled environment with friends. The way I did things, I was never really more than 15 feet away from Barge at any one time and there was at most 6 or 7 people looking at him. He was in my arms the entire time he was being moved so no shenanigans there either. You could possibly also start with smaller toys like the jets tiggy or maybe something around the size of a jets reindeer. That'd be more manageable I'd say. Despite the stress and worry, I will say it was worth it as no damages happened and Barge made some people happy.
I guess if you're an inflate and have to contend with a fat Italian plumber, things might get heated for attention lol. Dear god, I cannot believe I just said that. X3
I may have to try and bringing a smaller toy to a furmeet sometime, I did bring Spark one time, only because another friend of mine wanted to see him, but that was in a controlled environment. And I guess I did run from room to room at MFF a couple of years back with Alex in my arms, but like I said squeakies at cons are the norm.