That's Hedgie the hedgehog. I got him when I was seven and my family was living in England for a year, and his natural habitat has been my bed ever since. A while back I started noticing that a lot of my adult friends had
stuffed animals on their beds too. And I don't mean just as pillows or cute decorations.
These animals had a mangled cuteness that suggested some heavy use through the years. They were sources of comfort in the present, partially because they worked kind of like sponges, soaking up all the life experiences of their owner's pasts. Where
had they come from? How long had they been around?
