Cabbage Patch Kid-napping

Blast From The Cabbage Patch Past
See Photos Below....
In the late 90's, perhaps you spent hours in line waiting for a certain Beanie Baby or purchased Happy Meals that you did not eat, "Just For The Teeny-Beanie Baby Happy Meal Toy" so you could complete your collection. At this moment in time, you may be desperately searching for the latest Webkinz stuffed animal. Haven't heard of Webkinz? You must not have a little girl in your daily life. Webkinz are the latest "drive parents to stand in line, search the web, call all over the country, enter every give away contest" toy. Locating a Webkinz takes a savvy village of parents all networking to find which location or website has received the latest shipment, what they have, how many they will sell, etc.
Recently, I stumbled across the Mother-load of Webkinz being unloaded and placed on store shelves. Yes, right there in front of me. I was speechless. What to do? All these Webkinz in front of me. I ended up purchasing about 30 of the little creatures and placing them on ebay. With what appears to be a shortage of these toys, I was certain they would sell "like hotcakes" ,that people would fight over them, that they would sell for ridiculous amounts of money.... Wrong-O. NO Takers. The ebay Webkinz market is saturated. A simple sign at my Grocery Store Ad Board did the trick. Every person in town is hounding me. The Wellington Webkinz world is happy-at least for today.
Experiencing the Webkinz and Beanie Baby Craze combined pales with the Cabbage Patch Kids frenzy of the early 80's. the fights, the riots, the days of camping at stores, and yes, even the Kidnapping....
Below are photos from December 1983. My sister,Jenni, was visiting my family in Florida for Christmas. I should re-phrase that, My sister, Jenni, and her children (aka 2 Cabbage Patch Kids) were visiting my family in Florida. Jenni's Cabbage Patch Kids were receiving the utmost care and attention from her, daily walks, changing clothes, watching their favorite cartoons, sitting in their own seats on the airplane, wearing seat belts in the car...you get the picture. One afternoon, we came home and in the place of the Cabbage Patch Kids was a Ransom Note (see below) My sister's children had been kidnapped! (To this day, I maintain, I was not involved...I really was NOT)Read and see details below....

After searching the house and interrogating the family, it was evident that the dolls were really gone. Time to step up the search and involve the community. We did what any frantic parent would do... we called Channel 12 News and The Town-Crier Newspaper. Both were on our doorstep within the hour interviewing Jenni and trying to help solve the case.

Jenni was perched outside on our little Blue Honda and handled her first Press Conference like a champ. She was headline news that evening.. yet. still no dolls. Then, another note....

This final note was written backwards, requiring the reader to hold it up to a mirror for reading. Once Jenni followed the instructions, she would get her babies back, so the note said. She followed the instructions and the next day, her babies were returned, unharmed. They were placed in a bag on our tree in the front yard.

With the trauma of this event far behind us, I am allowed to say...This kidnapping was orchestrated by my dear friend and neighbor, Lene'. My mom thought that my dad and I planned the entire caper. My dad was innocently outside on a ladder working on getting our house ready to paint. Lene' had mentioned the possibility of the kidnapping, so I was quite certain that she was the culprit and that the babies were fine the entire time.

Although the Beanie Baby and Webkinz collecting are huge crazes. The 1980's Cabbage Patch Kids phenomenon was an amazing time. Without the internet, parents had to stand out in lines for days just for a chance to purchase one of the newest babies from the Cabbage Patch. A brick and mortar, hands-on location gave the best chance of becoming the proud parent of a Cabbage Patch Kid