S.A.C.S.

Let me tell you about the Stuff A Carcass Store.  The Stuff A Carcass Store is more commonly referred to as the Build-A-Bear Workshop.  As stated in the last post, this place creeps me the fuck out.  Not only do you allow your kids to be amateur taxidermists, but the things you need to do to make a stuffed animal.

My first experience with S.A.C.S. (Stuff A Carcass Store and I just noticed the acronym spelled out sacks, heh heh heh) was back in 2004 when my wife and I thought we should make our oldest son a bear for a keepsake.  At this point we were living in Shrewsbury and the closest S.A.C.S. was in the Natick Mall (again with the Mall Streets).  We went there one Sunday afternoon and if you have been there before you know the first thing you come to are the bins of carcasses.  This was a pretty memorable day for me for a few reasons, but the first was that I actually had a voice in a decision with my wife, I was able to pick out the carcass...oh, joy!  While perusing the bins, I came across a monkey carcass, I love monkeys, hell what guy doesn't love monkeys?  I could go on about monkeys, but I won't because were are talking about S.A.C.S.

So I pick out the monkey carcass and show it to my 1 month old, who is obviously oblivious to anything going on around him so I look like one of those over bearing fathers trying to get their baby to communicate with them.  Now there are steps you have to take after choosing the right carcass at S.A.C.S., first you need to pick out a sound.  I wanted to choose the "record your own voice" gadget and make the monkey say "Spank me!" every time you squeezed it, but my voice in decisions was taken away and the dictatorship rose to power again.  Since they didn't have any Star Wars sounds (at that point) and no monkey sounds (how the hell can you sell a monkey carcass without a monkey sound?) we opted to not put any sound in it at all, thus saving us $5.00.

The next step on this adventure is freaking fantastic (note the sarcasm).  You pick out the carcass' first vital organ, the heart.  You get to pick out a little tiny heart, about the size of the Grinch's at the beginning of the "growing" part and shove the heart in through the back of the carcass.  If that is not bad enough, you actually have to do things to the heart before shoving it in.


Now usually, the S.A.C.S. Associate or the S.A.C.S. ASS., will have the child do a medieval ritual,  but because my son was 1 month old and can't even poop without straining himself, I was elected to be the sacrificial offering.  Now, at this point the S.A.C.S. ASS. was toying with me because we have spent HUNDREDS of dollars in these stores and my kids have never had to do this fiasco like I did.  I had to hold the monkey carcass in my left hand and the vital organ in my right hand.  I had to kiss the heart for "love", rub the heart for "life" and then stick the heart into the carcass.  Oh, that's not so bad you might be saying, but after shoving the vital organ into the carcass, the S.A.C.S. ASS., made me stand on one leg, raise the monkey over my head and proclaim "I love my monkey!"  Needless to say, it was at this point the my son started noticing things because he laughed his ass off like everyone else in the store.


Managing to get through this barbaric display of embarrassment, you then have to sodomize the monkey carcass with a metal pipe.  Being blasted out of the pipe is (I'm sure) organic, hypoallergenic, stuffing.  You get to control how much stuffing you blast into your carcass.  Do you want your monkey hard or soft?  Sounds a bit personal if you ask me.


After filling your monkey, the S.A.C.S. ASS. stitches it up like it just had a c-section.  You then take your monkey over to the "bathtub".  Now correct me if I'm wrong but when you have a new born baby you are not supposed to give it a bath until the little dried up nubby on the belly falls off and that usually takes about 7-10 days.  So right off the bat you are teaching a bad lesson to the kids making their stuffed animals.  The best part about the "bath" is that it is a high powered air jet and not water.  Now I KNOW that you are not supposed to blast a new born with a high pressure tube of air.

Now you have an air cleaned, naked monkey.  Of course monkeys need clothes, I mean seriously, why the hell not?  As we are looking at these outfits, I am seeing the bill of sale going up and pretty soon this monkey is going to cost us more than the co-pay for our real kid.  Both my wife and I like camping and hiking, we met at a Boy Scout camp after all, so we thought it would be cool to dress the monkey in some sort of camping gear (the Star Wars outfits didn't come out until a few years later and yes we have them).  We picked out a "Boy Scout" outfit with hiking boots, shorts (Ohhh Look....It's A  Scrotum), Scout shirt and a hat.  But that wasn't enough, our monkey got a backpack that cost more than my actual backpack, a sleeping bag rated to -20 degrees, and a cook set to put in the backpack.  This monkey was ready to hit the Appalachian Trail!

After admiring our handy work, you now have to got to a computer database and create a birth certificate for the monkey.  Basically it takes all the fun out of making a birth certificate with the exception of naming the monkey.  After pondering long and hard we decided to name the monkey....Scout (creative right?)  Again the dictator reigned supreme and my choices were shot down (Luke, Chainsaw, Pistol, you know the usual).

We slowly approach the cash register knowing that we have created a really expensive monkey and that pissed me off because I could have bought a real live monkey for $50 on Barbados.  I closed my eyes and let my wife pay for the monkey.  The S.A.C.S. ASS. sticks the monkey into a cardboard box, just like if you adopted a kitten from the MSPCA and you bring it home.

We have had this monkey since 2004 and guess what?  It has only been played with MAYBE a 1/2 dozen times, tops.  $150 stuffed animal that sits on a shelf?  Frickin awesome.  Now my wife despises that place too but her reason is that she is pissed she didn't think of the money making idea herself.  Yet like a moth drawn to a flame, we keep going back there....go figure.