The Right Kind of Soft

One of my personal quirks, being a lunatic by nature as well as nurture, is that I am slightly obsessive about soft things. Not just any old soft things, however. They must be The Right Kind of Soft: so smooth and fluffy under the fingers that one might be stroking a cloud.

It can all be traced back, I suspect, to the fact that when I was a Small Sarah, many moons ago, I sucked my thumb while grasping Hankie, one of my dad's old handkerchiefs that I rubbed between my fingers until it was as soft as soft can be. Slowly but surely, of course, I would whittle away the fabric until all that was left was a sad little scrap.

My poor parents dreaded the day when they could no longer put off Hankie Substitution, because they faced histrionics and heart-wrending grief until my busy little fingers were able to create a suitably soft area on The Imposter.

I did thumb-sucking obsessively, too, finally allowing my nearest and dearest to coax me out of the habit at about the age of 13, when my teeth had bored such a nightly hole in the top of my thumb that I sported a permanent tooth-wound almost reaching the bone.

Interestingly, I was a smoker within about a year. Oral personality, perhaps?

The upshot of this sweet little story is that my very favourite present this year was not the hugely expensive camera or the drool-inducing Battlestar Galactica box set. It's a 3-inch tall wolf finger puppet with irresistible fur.