Electrical Elephant

My father-in-law is still hanging in there, but it seems like it's not going to be long before he passes away :( I sooooooooooo hope Sander will make it in time, he should be entering the air plane by now. Please send good thoughts their way.

This all has made me think back to my own father. He passed away a few years ago.

When I was a little girl, he used to travel a lot. When he would go on a business trip, he would always find me a little present to give to me when he came home. One day, I think I must have been around five years old, he asked me 'What would you like me to bring from this trip?' Being a typical 5yo, I answered the first thing which entered my head 'An electrical elephant.'

Fast forward to his trip. It was in Brussels, Belgium. He had quite a lot of meetings, but found some time to go shopping. He went into store after store. 'Can I help you?' 'I wondered whether you sell electrical elephants' 'No, sorry, we don't.' 'Do you know any place where I could find those?' 'Hmmm, no, sorry'.

After a while, he just gave up. There didn't seem to be an electrical elephant in existence in the whole of Brussels. He jumped on the offer of a nice sales lady who told him that they did have a plush elephant, just not electrical. She wrapped it and he took it back to the hotel.

While he was walking there, he passed one more store he hadn't seen yet. And guess what was in the window display? Indeed, an electrical elephant...

He came home to one happy daughter. That electrical elephant still lives at my parents house. It has terrorized generations of toddlers by now. The sound it makes can be quite scary to a little one.