Reggie - The Dang Armadillo

             

            I get a lot of questions about Reggie, which I suppose I shouldn’t find surprising, given that he’s a taxidermied sheriff armadillo who wears varying pieces of flair, shows up to random social events, and is seen more often on my Facebook profile than I am.  In one way, I get it, because he makes no sense. In another, I feel like Reggie doesn’t need an origin story, that the fact that he is here and makes no sense is story enough, and that the stories anyone might dream up as they lay awake in bed at night thinking about my taxidermied armadillo (I know they do this often) would be infinitely better than the true story. However, by popular demand, I’ve decided to tell the origin story of The Dang Armadillo.

            I got Reggie on eBay when I lived in California, invigorated by the fresh sea air, the healthy vegetarian food, the independence of living so far from home at the age of 18, and the infinite possibilities of a credit card and a computer to order things on. He did come from a seller in Texas. While I do remember how much I paid for him, I will not divulge this aspect of Reggie’s humble beginnings, suffice it to say that I have never for a day in my life regretted a single cent spent on him. The next question I’m usually asked is, “So you just went on eBay and started looking at taxidermied armadillos?” Well yeah, friend, actually I did. First of all, come over to my house and look at the things I own and ask me that question again with a straight face. Second of all, I actually had a reason, and it’s not complete bullshit.

            At the time, I was reading “A Prayer For Owen Meany,” by John Irving, which is one of my favorite books, so turn off your TV and go read it. In this book, a taxidermied armadillo, and more specifically the claws of a taxidermied armadillo, play a key role in the beginning of the story. I won’t go into details because you really should turn off your TV and actually read the book. I do this thing when I read where I look up things that the book references. If it’s a painting, I look at the painting. If it’s a song, I listen to the song (especially in a Haruki Murakami book, so good!). As someone who loves reading more than just about anything, it makes me feel like I understand more what the author is trying to say about the painting, or the song, or the thing. It lets me see things more clearly in my head. Maybe no one else does this. So yes, creative friend who asks me this question not expecting me to have a good answer, I was in fact just Googling “taxidermied armadillo,” and that is what led me to eBay.

            When I saw the image of Reggie with his sheriff’s star, gun holster, and cowboy hat, I remember audibly gasping and saying “Oh, my sweet god.” It took me half of a nanosecond to make up my mind. While I immediately wanted to purchase him, I didn’t immediately want to commit to spending the amount of money required to do so (see paragraph 2). So I thought about it for a few days. And obsessed over the fact that someone else might buy him before I did. Then I talked to a friend, a friend who, for the sake of full disclosure, I knew would support my views on said armadillo and encourage my less-than-stellar spending habits. “What should I do with this?” I asked. “Well, shit,” he replied, “You buy the shit out of that dang armadillo.”

            And so I did.

            It took almost three months for Reggie to show up at my house. Apparently things in Texas, no matter how large, are not very punctual. Upon his arrival, I was actually horrified. He leaned to the left significantly (read: a whole lot), was poorly fastened to his wooden base, and had a gigantic Frankenstein scar down his entire abdomen that had clearly been sewn by a palsy-stricken great-grandfather with serious arthritis issues and an even more serious drinking problem. But the more I got to know Reggie, the more I began appreciating him for what he was: a completely bizarre, shoddily done piece of redneck taxidermy.

And for those wondering, I don’t have an origin story for the name Reggie. I compulsively name just about everything, and the method I use is to look at the thing and wait until The Perfect Name pops into my head. Sometimes it takes a second, sometimes it takes a few weeks. Reggie’s happened pretty quickly.

Reggie has a wide variety of eccentric accoutrements, including a Santa hat, a stars-and-stripes necktie, a Viagra necktie, a coffee cup, an “I Voted” sticker (despite his state of origin, Reggie is a bleeding-heart liberal), a winter scarf, a cloth cactus, and (god willing by Halloween 2013) a pumpkin costume, as well as the cowboy hat he is seen sporting in the accompanying photos. Unfortunately, like the methods used to construct him, Reggie’s original cowboy hat was an utter piece of shit, and fell apart more quickly than you can say “Texas Roadkill.” It lies somewhere in the Santa Barbara county dump, god rest its soul. Reggie’s current cowboy hat was purchased in Thailand by my California buddy Stinna, and yes, we are aware that it’s slightly too big, so shut the hell up about it.

And so Reggie remains what he always has been: a bizarre, shoddily done piece of redneck taxidermy. Even though I have other pieces of bizarre redneck taxidermy, Reggie will always be my firstborn and my favorite. He is my mascot and might be the only child I will ever have. He has made two cross-country moves with me and weathered nursing school, a marriage, the purchase of a house, and the unending angst of a 20-something millennial.  

I will share one more Reggie anecdote that is necessary to gauge how amazing the photo at the bottom of this post is. Back in the wilds of California, my spirit animal/best buddy Tobias and I took a road trip to San Francisco. We decided that it would be incomparably hilarious to take Reggie with us and photograph him throughout the trip, and so we did. I carried him around in a shopping bag and then a backpack the entire time. Yes, he got heavy, and no, he doesn’t fit very well into either of the aforementioned vessels. I unfortunately have no idea what happened to the rest of those photos, but the most important one remains. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you: Reggie with the park rangers on the island of Alcatraz. And no, we did not prompt them to use the gun. That’s simply the magnificence that Reggie inspires in others.