He's about 6 inches tall, furry, laughs when you tickle him, purrs when you pet him, and says "Wheeee!" when you swing him. And my daughter just had to have one for Christmas.
Now I'm not much for shopping, but, uh, fortunately for me, my wife spotted a toy store ad in the Thanksgiving Day paper. "We've got Furbies!", the ad trumpeted. They were opening at 6:00 a.m. on the day after Thanksgiving, with a limited supply of Furbies going to the first customers. Just minutes earlier, my wife had proclaimed, "There's no way I'm going near a store on the day after Thanksgiving." And, of course, there was no way I was going to get up at the crack of dawn just to go shopping for some stupid toy. Then my daughter saw the ad...
The alarm clock went off at 5:00 a.m. I woke my wife and off we went to the mall, arriving at 5:45 a.m. I didn't think there would be too many other idiots like us out hunting a Furby at that hour. I was wrong. About 300 people were already lined up in front of us at the main mall entrance. The crowd was reasonably well-behaved, at least until the security guard came to the door at 6:00 a.m. He said that the main door we were at would not be opened, and we'd have to find another entrance to the toy store. It was everyone for himself from that point on, with people scurrying like roaches in all directions around the mall's perimeter.
We drove to the far side of the mall, where we saw people rushing in a door marked "Employees Only." We went in, got to the toystore at 6:10 a.m., only to find out that - you guessed it - the Furbies were all gone.
My daughter was very sad that we weren't able to get a Furby. I was sad, too, as I stood shivering in that line on a cold, late November morning. Sad that we never have 300 people standing in line on Sunday morning outside the church building to be sure they get a seat to worship the Creator of the universe. Sad that we make every excuse you can think of for not worshipping God at a reasonable 10:30 a.m. in a comfortable building with padded pews. Sad that we are willing to go to such lengths to seek after the things of this world, but not after the kingdom of God.
"But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness..."(Matt. 6:33)
Mark Varney
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Page updated 01/21/99.