“CALIE JOHNEIEN BROWN GET UP AND CLEAN THIS ROOM!” I wake to my aunt yelling at me; I roll over to face her and ask her to repeat herself. “I said to get up and clean this pigpen of a room.” She stomped out. So I stand up, stretch and look around the room to see what needs to be cleaned. I decide to clean my floor first by picking up pencils, blankets, stuffed animals, basically anything that doesn’t belong down there.

After that I go to my desk and started cleaning it, more pencils and more stuffed animals, and soon I had the whole room cleaned, apart from the mountain of stuffed animals on my bed. I left my room to grab a chair from my kitchen so I could stand on it to put my stuffed animals back in the net on my ceiling. Before I could go back to my room with the chair, my aunt stops me and asks me what I’m doing with the chair. I say “I’m taking the chair into my room to stand on it, I need to put my plushies in the nets, but I’m too short to reach them.” So she says she would help me put my stuffed animals away, not wanting to make her upset by saying no. I reluctantly said yes to her, wanting to get this over and done with. 

We walk into my room, and she just stares at the mountain of stuffed animals, probably because she didn’t know I had so many. She looks at me with the sternest look I’ve ever seen on her face, and she just says “Calie why do you have so many of them.” I replied, “Because I like all of them. They’re cute and cuddly. I couldn’t say no to them.” She looks at me like I’m the biggest idiot in the world then she tells me I need to get rid of some of them, and I tell her no, they mean a lot to me, and I paid a lot for them. Walking over to the pile, I start trying to put them in the nets, and she just keeps telling me that I have way too many plushies, and me being me, I ignore her. After a few minutes I got on the chair I brought in with me, stuffing more plushies into one single net that looked like it was about to fall down.

Not noticing this in my small fit of anger, I turn to my aunt and continue to argue that I’m not getting rid of anyone of my plushies. I turn to my bed and pick up one of my favorite stuffed animals, nugget the little lion, scooping him up and stuffing him into the net, which was a bad idea because the net promptly fell on top of me, and the plushies went all over the floor. Looking over at my aunt, she is holding back a fit of laughter, and I start giggling, which soon turns into a full blown laugh. We stood there laughing for a bit, and when we finally calmed down, I agreed that I should probably get rid of some. 

A few days after that, I had gotten rid of half of my plush collection. Seeing that I have more room in my room, I thank my aunt and apologize for arguing with her and hug her. After hugging me, she looks at me and says “The next thing we need to work on is all those dragons you have.” I giggle and say “Hell no.” Then walk into my room and shut the door.