Memento: Alien toy

Received from: a former colleague
Occasion: My birthday, 2008

I work in the media/publishing industry so as you can imagine there's a fair turnover of colleagues. In 2007, I started at my current workplace sitting next to a junior staff writer who gave me this bizarre alien toy for my birthday in 2008. Not long after, she was made redundant.

I never really liked it; I suppose it was meant to be cute or something, but I always found its lack of eyes a bit creepy. We weren't that close but since I have this weird colleague magic that means I get on with anyone I sit next to I felt obliged to hang onto it, even just for show. When she left it was an opportunity to get rid of it, but I kept it because I felt bad about her.

The toy sat on a shelf above my desk. For the most part it was stuffed in a 1-litre Lowenbrau beer stein, which I inherited off a former editor who'd received it as some sort of PR gimmick gift. I've moved desks a few times since then and have kept it in the stein until this last move where I lost a fair bit of space and decided to take a lot of my non-work stuff home.

Due to a severe lack of space at home, alien toy has been donated to my local Vinnies, at which I volunteer once a fortnight. I hope it finds a loving home.

The beer stein, on the other hand, has become the only way I can safely put cut flowers in water...