Taken

For almost my entire life, I've heard the same joke of, "Where's Waldo?" This quote/unquote "joke", got old about the fifth time someone said it.

Now, truth be told, I was born about a year or two before the 'Where's Waldo' books came out. And I've honestly no clue where my parents got my name as both of them have given me different stories. But that has not stopped random people from giving me the most peculiar look when I tell them my name. And it also hasn't stopped them from calling me 'Walter' for some reason...

In short, I have nothing to do with the the 'Where's Waldo' character.

Those soulless eyes have mocked my pain for over 20 years...

But if there's something I've learned, it's that the universe has an ironic sense of humor...

For you see, back when I was about a year old baby, I was kidnapped. Causing the one and only time that it's been appropriate for someone to say "Where's Waldo?" Everything you're about to read is 100% true.

For a while, my family lived in Juarez, Mexico. Now, this was the 80's and during that time, it was perfectly normal to let children play out in the front yard. It was during one of these times that I up and disappeared.

Now, my family was understandably pretty freaked that I vanished and so one the first things they did was to check a nearby river for a body. And then they decided to ask the neighbors if they've seen me. Not one person who was asked knew where I was.

It looked like I had fallen off the face of the earth.

When you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back at you.

 

 

Turns out what happened was that an 8 year old girl apparently saw me and decided that I would make a great tea party guest. And so she picked me up and took me to her house straight to her backyard. I was apparently very trusting of strangers because I went along with the WHOLE thing. I played along and made some happy baby noises because the girl's mom even heard me and thought to herself, "Wow, new toys are getting better and better" It was during this time that my parents went to her house and asked if she'd seen me. The lady even asked the girl if she'd seen me.

The little girl said no.

Seriously, nothing clicked in this lady's mind that the newfangled toy might just be me. It wasn't until a while later that the 8 year old went inside and told her mom that the 'doll' was crying and wouldn't stop. One look and about two seconds later, I was returned to my incredibly relieved parents.