This toy elephant, left alone in the woods, apparently got into some bad drugs.

Sometimes my sense of humor goes awry. For example, I usually don’t deal with the macabre on this blog but have you ever thought about what happens to all of those toy animals that are left at roadside memorial sites. They go bad. I have proof.

I understand the practice; it’s as old as man. You are buried with your favorite dog, horse, wife, etc. so they can accompany you wherever you happen to be going. Chinese emperors and Egyptian pharaohs carried the practice to extremes. Vikings wanted to be buried with their weapons. In India, once upon a time, your widow was expected to make the ultimate sacrifice and throw her self on to your burning pyre so you could waft off together in the smoke.

The same motivation leads people to leave teddy bears and bunny rabbits at memorials to children. The idea is that the little kid will have something to play with in the afterlife. It’s a good thought.

But does anyone ever ask the toys what their preference is? I mean would you prefer to be in a warm dry house and be totally loved or would you prefer to be out at a roadside memorial abandoned to the rain and snow and fog and wind?

I’d be seriously irritated. Apparently the toys are as well. Consider the following photos:

Would you like to meet this bear on a dark night? He was scary enough during the day.

How about a lion whose mane had melted. As you might imagine, he was something of a grouch.

Then there was this bunny. He gave a new meaning to having a wild hare…

No sense of humor here… And he was one of the newest members of the menagerie.

Not far from where the animals lived, I found this memorial to lost soles. Could the toys have been leaving a message for us?

You know the mall shops where kids dress teddy bears… this Pilot Bear probably came from one. He was ready to go with a leather flight jacket and goggles, but would you fly with him?