Searching for Elmo

           Searching for Elmo

Suzanne Marsh

The orange neon light flashed: “South Corner Storage”. Ted and Carrie Melton were on a mission to find “Tickle Me Elmo,” a toy their son Tom wanted to give to his son Timmy. The South Corner Storage unit was full of wonderful memories for Ted and Carrie. They drove up to the unit, clambered out of their 2021 Yukon truck. They strode over to the overhead door and unlocking the lock, pushing up the overhead door. They gasped as they noted that the storage was jammed packed with their treasures. Ted, pushed several boxes away from the front as Carrie made her way in. They glanced at each other contemplating where Elmo might possibly be in these piles of things, they accumulated over forty years of marriage.

“Ted, maybe we should call Tom, this going to require more than just us. Elmo is I am,

sure, buried under here somewhere.”

“Carrie, remember, Tom is out of town. Timmy’s fifth birthday is in a few days and

Tom wants to give him Elmo. I promised we would deliver.”

Carrie could feel herself doing a slow burn; they should have started this weeks ago. The problem was they had always just dropped stuff off, never bothering to take note of where they were putting it or what it was. Here they stood, boxes piled from roof to floor and clueless as to where to even begin to look.

“Carrie, do remember what that Elmo thing looked like?”

“Ted, don’t you remember standing outside Montag's for hours waiting to get in there to

purchase that ridiculous red thing that giggled?”

“Carrie, please tell me that is not what we are actually searching for.”

“Fine, I won’t tell you, but it is.”

Ted rolled his eyes as he began to eye various boxes. He had a jackknife ready to begin opening boxes. He just had not planned on having to climb up on boxes to bring other boxes down to ground level. Ted gingerly began to climb up to toward the top, he tipped a box. The box gave way as Ted tumbled to floor. Carrie rushed over:

“Ted, are you all, right? Do you think you broke something?” Her voice hopeful, not that she wanted Ted to be hurt, she just did not want to continue the search for Elmo. Ted, stood up:

“Nothing broken, maybe I should try pulling a box from the bottom out, it might work

better than my climbing up on boxes.”

Ted, then proceeded to pull out a box in the corner of the storage until: boxes began to fall on top of Carrie and himself. ‘Bad idea’, he thought. There had to be an easier way other than pulling or climbing. Ted suddenly remembers there was a step ladder buried in this mess somewhere, the question remained where. The last place he had seen the step ladder was over next the south wall. He climbed over ten boxes; pushed a few of those out of the way. There was the step ladder, the object of his quest.

Ted moved the step ladder over to where he thought Elmo might be. He began handing the box down to Carrie. She grabbed it and opened it with the aid of Ted’s jackknife. Ted was off the ladder when he noticed the peculiar look on Carrie’s face:

“Oh, Ted, remember these castanets? We got them when we visited Mexico in 1990.”

Ted peered into the box, then noticed the label: 1990 Mexico trip. ‘Obviously, this is not the box, we are looking for, guess we just keep looking. The pile outside the door was ever increasing as the continued to look at their past with the future in mind.

The next box, although crushed moved Carrie to tears:

“Ted, remember this picture?”

“Yes, that was the year Tom got his first bicycle and broke his arm Christmas Day

trying to ride it on the ice.”

They smiled at the thought, their son was now a father; time sure did fly. Time, Ted glanced at his watch:

“Carrie, we have been at this since eight this morning, don’t you think a break would be

a good idea? We could go to The Burger Joint around the corner.”

“Yeah, I guess I am getting hungry. We can come back again this afternoon and

find good old Elmo, from wherever he may be!”

The strode hand in hand to the car; buckled up and headed for the Burger Joint. Carrie, smiled at Ted:

“We haven’t been to the Burger Joint since we added the last row of boxes four years ago.”

“Yes, it doesn’t seem like it was four years ago thought.”

Carrie smiled:

“Yes, Ted, it has been that long. Time has a way of sneaking up on a person.”

Having eaten they headed back to their task of finding Elmo. Once again, they opened the overhead door to the storage unit. Now, at least they could move about inside a little better than they had; they still had twenty or so boxes piled up in front of the unit. Ted moved toward the next layer of boxes, he was getting tired and cranky.

“Carrie, let’s call it quits for today, Elmo is being very illusive.”

“Ted, I am not leaving here without Elmo! We have to find him. Tom, is set on giving

Elmo to Timmy for his birthday tomorrow.”

Ted moaned and continued to concentrate on the pile of boxes in front of him. Three more boxes down row two they found an odd, shaped box. Could it be? Had they finally found Elmo? Ted lifted the lid to find a old set of pots and pans. ‘Damn’ he thought ‘we have to be getting close, most of this stuff is

from when Tom was a kid. Carrie watched his face in disappointment when discovered the old pots and pans.

There was one more box in this row perched precariously close to the edge of the other boxes. Ted, hoped it would not fall and hit him in the head like one in the last row did. He lowered the box carefully. There, in the dark recesses of the box was a fuzzy red object, before Ted could help himself, he exclaimed:

“I found the damned thing, I found Elmo, the search is over Carrie, we have Elmo!”