How could this have happened? I’d asked myself that question a hundred times since I received the call from my brother-in-law.
I’d been sitting at the computer, chatting on Reddit, a site for link sharing and tech conversation I visited daily, when the phone rang. I could tell right away something terrible had happened. “We’ve looked everywhere for Lars’s stuffed penguin,” Erik said. “Please tell me you have him.”
Penguiny was my nephew’s favorite stuffed toy. Lars carried him everywhere, slept with him at night, told him his problems. And these days Lars needed Penguiny more than ever.
Only four years old himself, Lars had barely gotten to know his baby brother before he died. Over night Lars’s world had turned cold and unfriendly. Now he had lost Penguiny too. What kind of uncle was I to let that happen?
“That penguin’s got to be here somewhere,” I said. “I’ll turn the place upside down until I find him.” Uncle Clint was on the case.
My wife, Anna, and I looked everywhere, starting with the room where Lars had slept during his visit. I’d planned outings for every day the family spent with us. We swam at the beach, ate pizza and ice cream, and went to Medieval Times, where “our” knight emerged from the tournament victorious.
His mother said it was the first time Lars had laughed since his brother’s death. I wanted nothing more than to bring a little joy back into Lars’s life, to make him see that the world could be friendly again.
Lars was just beginning to cope, I thought as I stripped the bed where Lars had slept. Another loss will send him back to square one.
Our apartment wasn’t that large. There weren’t that many places for a stuffed penguin to hide. “He isn’t here,” Anna said when we’d combed every inch of it twice, along with the car. But I couldn’t bear telling Lars his best friend was gone forever.
“He came from a store, right?” I said. “Maybe we can buy a replacement.” Uncle Clint to the rescue!
The hunt was on. According to Lars’s mother, Penguiny had come from a Target in Seattle. So while Anna stayed home scouring the company website, I drove to the nearest Target. And the next nearest. And the nearest one after that. Not a single one carried the penguin anymore.
“No luck,” I reported when I got home hours later.
“Me neither,” said Anna. “I checked every website I could think of.” We didn’t say much over dinner. As I got ready for bed, I imagined Lars back home, in his own bed, the bed he usually shared with Penguiny.
I sat down at the computer one more time before turning in. Out of habit I logged onto Reddit, but I had no interest in tech talk right now. My mind was on a missing penguin. But Reddit wasn’t for personal problems. I came here every day and never once saw anyone bring up stuffed animals.
Do you have any other ideas? I asked myself. No. So I opened up a new post on the forum. “Has anyone seen a stuffed penguin?” I wrote. “Desperate!” I briefly explained the situation and closed with a picture of Penguiny I had on my computer. Here goes nothing, I thought, and hit Post.
“You really think some techie on Reddit is going to know where to find a Penguiny?” asked Anna as I got into bed.
Of course she was right. By tomorrow morning my post would be lost at the bottom of hundreds of other posts site users had voted more important. I turned off the light. I need to find some way to come through for Lars, I thought as I drifted off to sleep. This problem is too big for an uncle.
I dreaded calling Lars’s parents the next morning. I turned on the computer and logged on to Reddit to take my mind off the problem. To my surprise, Penguiny was right up on the top of the page—that meant other site users had voted it important, moving it up the board click by click.
Over 1,600 clicks! Many of those users had left a comment on the thread too. In less than 24 hours, hundreds of people had responded.
Anna and I scrolled through the comments. Someone with the user name tiger_lily wrote “Good luck, and Godspeed!” AngelBlu offered, “Tell me where to go and I will get it for you!” Kapita reported, “I checked all the Targets in my area. None of them have it. I want to help, though.”
I couldn’t believe how eager people were to get the word out, much less search the stores in their area. But I was really shocked by the number of people who offered to give up their own stuffed penguins for Lars. They’d uploaded dozens of pictures so I could see if any were a close enough match.
“Who knew there were so many different stuffed penguins in the world,” I said. Unfortunately none of them looked like Penguiny. One was too big, another too small, the wrong color, the wings weren’t right.
Scrolling through them was like visiting Targets the day before: hope, followed by disappointment.
“I can’t believe with all these people helping we still can’t find the right penguin,” said Anna.
I scrolled down one more post. And there he was: Penguiny.
RustyRambo from Torrance, California, had posted a picture of Penguiny’s twin—and he was only 45 minutes away. We messaged him for his phone number, set a meeting place and got in the car. Anna squeezed my hand as I struggled to keep the speed limit. Uncle Clint to the rescue at last.
Brandon is RustyRambo’s name in real life. We met him in a parking lot in Torrance. There he lifted the stuffed penguin out of his car and put it in my arms.
“I’m just happy to help a child in need,” he said when we offered to buy it from him. Nope, he wouldn’t even let us buy him lunch. We snapped a quick photo and headed for the nearest post office.
According to Lars, his dad later told me, Penguiny had spent his time away with his own penguin aunts and uncles, eating hot dogs and surfing (that’s how his coat got so clean).
Uncle Clint to the rescue! Only it wasn’t me who saved the day. It was a community of cyber angels who answered the call. The world was a very friendly place.
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