John Price was a man of routine. At 45 years old, he had perfected the art of doing very little. Living in his mom’s basement in suburban Virginia, his life revolved around two passions: posting nonsense in the "Useless Thread" section of HFBoards (where he held the record for the longest thread about why the Arizona Coyotes should trade for Sidney Crosby) and his extensive plushie collection.
John’s plushies, numbering close to 7500, were his pride and joy. Each one had a name, a backstory, and a designated spot in his meticulously organized basement kingdom. To an outsider, it looked like a Toys "R" Us that had been raided by a hurricane of nostalgia. To John, it was paradise.
But one fateful Tuesday morning, everything changed.
The Missing Plushie
John awoke at the crack of noon, as usual, and shuffled over to his collection to perform his daily inventory check. As he counted, his heart skipped a beat. There was a glaring, gut-wrenching void in the "Premium Tier Sea Creatures" section.
His favorite dolphin plushie, Finnegan T. Splashington III, was gone.
“NO!” John bellowed, the sound rattling the basement windows and startling his mom upstairs. He frantically searched every corner of his domain, lifting piles of Xbox controllers, half-empty Mountain Dew cans, and pizza boxes. Nothing.
He stormed upstairs, panting heavily, and confronted his mom, who was in the middle of watching her daytime soaps.
“Mom! Did you take Finnegan?”
“John, I don’t even know what a Finnegan is,” she said, not looking up from her program.
“He’s a dolphin!” John shouted, his voice cracking with panic. “The one with the monocle and the little sailor hat!”
She sighed. “Why would I take your stuffed animals? Maybe you lost it.”
“I don’t LOSE plushies!” John retorted, storming back downstairs. He knew he had to take matters into his own hands.
The Investigation
John decided to start his investigation with his archenemy: the neighborhood kids. For years, they had mocked him, calling him names like "Bigfoot Basement Man" and “Captain Crumbs” whenever they saw him waddling to the mailbox.
He grabbed a bag of stale Doritos as bait and positioned himself near the fence, where the kids were playing basketball.
“Hey!” he called, his voice wheezy. “You little punks! Did you take my dolphin?”
The kids stopped and stared. “What dolphin?” one of them asked, barely suppressing a grin.
“Finnegan T. Splashington III!” John yelled, as if that would clarify everything.
The kids erupted into laughter. “No, we didn’t take your toy, dude!” one shouted before resuming their game. John huffed and muttered, “Lying little jerks,” as he shuffled back inside.
A New Lead
Convinced the kids were too dumb to execute such a heist, John turned his attention to the mailman. He’d always been suspicious of the guy, who once jokingly referred to John as “The Collector.”
John waited by the mailbox, pacing nervously. When the mailman arrived, John blocked his path, arms crossed.
“Where’s Finnegan?” he demanded.
The mailman blinked. “Finnegan?”
“My dolphin! The one with the monocle!”
“Sir, I deliver letters, not plushies,” the mailman said, edging toward his truck.
“Sure you do,” John muttered, glaring as the mailman drove off in a hurry.
Desperation and Chaos
Out of leads, John decided to take drastic action. He created a missing poster, complete with a blurry photo of Finnegan (taken with a flip phone from 2008) and the caption: “HAVE YOU SEEN THIS DOLPHIN?” He printed 50 copies and plastered them all over the neighborhood, earning bewildered looks from joggers, dog walkers, and the cashier at the 7-Eleven.
To his dismay, the only response he got was a call from the homeowners’ association, politely asking him to “please stop scaring the neighbors.”
The Truth Revealed
Weeks passed, and John’s search became more desperate. He turned his basement upside down, even accusing his mom’s elderly Shih Tzu, Muffin, of foul play. Muffin, unimpressed, responded by peeing on one of John’s GameStop receipts.
Finally, one fateful night, while reaching for a slice of cold pizza he’d dropped behind the couch weeks earlier, John found something wedged in the cushions. His heart raced. Could it be?
It wasn’t Finnegan. It was an old Taco Bell sauce packet.
“Damn it!” John cried, flinging the packet across the room. As he did, something caught his eye. There, on the highest shelf, behind his oversized Snorlax plushie, was a familiar fin peeking out.
“FINNEGAN!” he yelled, climbing onto a wobbly stool to retrieve the dolphin.
But in his excitement, John lost his balance. The stool tipped, and John came crashing down, taking Snorlax, Finnegan, and half the shelf with him.
When the dust settled, John sat in a heap of plushies, holding what remained of Finnegan. The monocle was missing, the sailor hat was crushed, and one of the dolphin’s flippers had been ripped clean off.
“Nooooo!” John wailed, cradling the injured plushie.
The Aftermath
In the end, Finnegan was beyond repair. John retired him to the “Plushie Memorial Shelf,” next to a stuffed bear that had fallen victim to an unfortunate nacho cheese incident in 2017.
Though he never found out how Finnegan ended up on that high shelf, John found solace in a new obsession: acquiring replacement dolphins. Within months, he had 12 new dolphin plushies, none of which lived up to Finnegan T. Splashington III.
And so, life went on for John Price, the 45-year-old HFBoards legend, who returned to his true calling: posting 3,000-word trade proposals that everyone ignored.