John Price was no ordinary collector of plushies. At 400 pounds, the large man with a passion for all things soft and cuddly had become a legend on HFBoards’ “Useless Thread,” where he regaled his audience with tales of his ever-growing plushie collection. He was notorious for his eccentric personality, once even claiming that his favorite plushie, Sir Snugglesworth, had "better vibes than any human could provide."
It was a crisp Saturday afternoon when John waddled into the local mall. His destination? Build-A-Bear Workshop, the mecca for plush enthusiasts. The store was alive with the sounds of giggling children and the whir of stuffing machines. But for John, it was something far more sacred—a holy ground where he could expand his beloved collection.
The trouble began when John spotted her. There she was, perched on a shelf near the back: a limited-edition unicorn plushie with a sequined horn and pastel fur so fluffy it looked like it had been spun from clouds. His heart raced. He had to have her.
John's passion, however, quickly took an unsettling turn. After purchasing the unicorn and naming her “Princess Glitterwings,” he moved to a quiet corner of the store, his back turned to the rest of the shoppers. There, overcome by an uncontrollable wave of affection, John hugged Princess Glitterwings tightly. Then, the hugging became...something else.
Unfortunately for John, a sharp-eyed grandma named Ethel Mae Jenkins had been watching from the nearby stuffing station as her grandson picked out a T-Rex plushie. Ethel, a woman who did not tolerate nonsense, gasped so loudly that the entire store froze.
“EXCUSE ME, SIR!” she bellowed, pointing her cane at John like a knight unsheathing a sword.
John froze mid-thrust, his face turning a shade of crimson that rivaled the Build-A-Bear heart charms. Children began to giggle, parents shielded their eyes, and the store manager, a frazzled young woman named Becky, rushed over.
“Sir, you need to leave—immediately,” Becky said, her voice shaking with both anger and secondhand embarrassment.
“I-I was just hugging her!” John stammered, clutching Princess Glitterwings as if she were his lifeline.
“You were doing a lot more than hugging!” Ethel snapped, jabbing him in the thigh with her cane for emphasis.
What followed was a scene that would go down in mall history. Two security guards arrived to escort John out, but his size and determination to keep Princess Glitterwings made the task far from simple. As the guards tried to pry the unicorn from his hands, John bellowed, “You’ll never take her from me!”
Chaos ensued. A popcorn vendor accidentally tipped over his cart in the commotion, spilling kernels across the floor. A teenage girl filming for TikTok tripped on the popcorn, sending her phone flying into a fountain. Ethel, still fired up, started chasing one of the guards with her cane, claiming he wasn’t “handling the situation with dignity.”
As John was finally dragged toward the mall exit, still clutching Princess Glitterwings, a crowd had gathered, many filming the spectacle on their phones. “I just wanted to love her!” John cried dramatically, tears streaming down his face.
Once outside, the guards deposited John onto a bench and warned him never to return. But John, ever the optimist, took a moment to compose himself. He smoothed Princess Glitterwings’ mane and muttered, “They’ll never understand us, my sweet. But we have each other.”
Meanwhile, inside the mall, Ethel was given a free plushie for her troubles, which she proudly declared would go to her grandson. “At least someone around here knows how to treat a stuffed animal with respect,” she sniffed.
And thus, John Price became an urban legend, his antics immortalized in both the HFBoards “Useless Thread” and countless viral videos titled ‘Build-A-Bear Gone Wild.’ As for John? He vowed to never return to that mall—though rumor has it he’s been spotted at the mall two towns over, eyeing a rainbow-colored teddy bear with suspicious intensity.