Ginormous Elmo for Sale

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Most people who’ve been to a carnival, fair or amusement park are familiar with the “ring toss.” Players toss wooden or plastic rings at a large grid of Coke bottles and try to get one to land just right over the bottle’s opening to win the big prize.

Every time my husband, Mike, and I visited Reno, NV, we would go to Circus Circus and play the carnival games there to win prizes for our daughter. She loved getting all those stuffed animals and anything else we were fortunate enough to win.

About six years ago, we were strolling through the casino’s family gaming area and came across the ring toss. We usually wouldn’t play it, but the prize was something we thought our daughter would love. The toys that day were from “Sesame Street”—ginormous Big Birds, Elmos, and Berts and Ernies. Our daughter was obsessed with Elmo at the time, so we had to try to win one for her.

Mike and I plunked down a few dollars and got a stack of rings. I carefully tossed them at the bottles, but they all bounced off. My husband, however, managed to get one of those rings to loop over the top of a bottle—winner!

The ginormous 64-inch Elmo was ours—and I happily carried him back through the casino, up the elevator and to our room (not without some strange looks from passers-by).

Once home, we undid Elmo’s seat belt in the backseat of the car (yes, he was that large) and carried him in for our daughter to see. Unfortunately, she took one look and made a bee-line to her room, shutting the door behind her. Turned out, the larger-than-life Elmo spooked her, and she wanted nothing to do with him.

Poor, Elmo! So I photographed him and put him up for bid on eBay. In the end he managed to make us almost $100!

The hardest part was trying to ship him—luckily his legs and arms were nice and flexible. After that fiasco, we decided to not try to win those giant toys again.

Still, the experience gave me my own “strangest item I’ve sold on eBay” story.

What’s yours?