Lotso and Daisy.
It was a match made in heaven, or at least that was what Lotso had believed at the time.
He had been, or he had believed, himself so lucky to have such a loving owner as Daisy. He was a toy, and he was loved by a child, a special little girl named Daisy.
Toys were meant to be loved by children's they grew older; toys could be there to be friends, or they could be silent playmates. It wasn't unusual for boys to play with toy train sets or soldier toys, and plan out little battles while girls staged tea parties with their dolls.
Lotso had first met Daisy on Christmas Day. The magic of Christmas plus a magical meeting. Being loved any time during the course of the year was one of the things many toys strove to be. But Christmas and Birthdays were even more special since they were important to the child. To be unwrapped on Christmas Day was seen among toys as a great joy, and being loved instantly was even better.
Lotso hadn't enjoyed the cramped space inside the box he'd been wrapped inside; it was dark, there were strange noises outside although he would come to recognise them later. It was cramped and he had nothing to do with his time while he waited to be unwrapped. But when he was unwrapped…it was to look down onto the face of a cherubic little girl with blonde hair.
Daisy.
Daisy was the kind of owner a toy wanted out of life. She always demanded their attention. She would have little tea parties with her toys; a baby doll and a clown, but Lotso… Lotso truly did not understand what it was about himself that Daisy adored so much. But he wasn't complaining. Lotso never complained whenever Daisy ran out with him in her arms in the rain, even when the water seeped through his fur and into his body. He never complained when the girl refused to give him time to himself, or when she insisted on taking him to watch television or when her parents read her a story.
Lotso knew, deep down, like all toys that eventually Daisy would grow up and she would discover new interests to take her fancy. But he didn't care. He didn't care if Daisy stopped playing with him. All he hoped for was a chance to see the girl whom he loved so much grow to become a beautiful angel.
He only wanted to see Daisy, his Daisy, grow. It was not so hard to ask for. And if she never held him in her arms again… while it was heartbreaking to think about it, especially since toys did not have hearts, Lotso believed he would understand in time. And if by some miracle, Daisy had children of her own someday, it was Lotso's fervent hope and dream to be there as a source of joy and love for her children.
And then the dream died.
The tragic thing about dreams that die painfully is that when they do die out it is slow, so as to draw the pain out even more. The tragic thing was you never knew when it was going to happen. Lotso, Chuckles the Clown, and Baby certainly had no idea it was going to happen. One day Daisy and her parents went out on a picnic. They travelled to a deserted spot so they could enjoy their picnic lunch, and Daisy took her three favourite toys with her.
They'd had fun before Daisy left her toys behind in the grass and ran off to have lunch with her parents. Lotso, the clown, and Baby didn't move, even though they were lying uncomfortably in the grass.
They knew Daisy would return for her.
Only she didn't. The girl fell asleep, and she was carried away by her blind parents who hadn't spared the toys Daisy had brought with her so much as a thought. Lotso and the others didn't move until the car had left. All three were numb with shock. Daisy…she…she'd left! But Lotso would never give up, even when Baby and Chuckles were despairing. Daisy had been holding onto Lotso during the trip, so he felt confident he could take them back to her.
It sounded simple. But it wasn't. Lotso quickly realised that because Daisy had been holding him against a window, there was a great deal he could see. But because they were a trio of toys walking on a road, and they didn't come close to the knee of a human, some of those landmarks were hard to spot even as they followed the line of the road. Sometimes the trio had to stand on each other's shoulders to give Lotso his bearings. The journey home took time, and it seemed to take forever but finally and to the relief of the trio, they'd found their way back home.
Seeing a light in the living room, Lotso had baby lift him and Chuckles up. There was Daisy, and Lotso had grinned overjoyed at the sight of her sitting in a chair, holding a book. He had just been working on a plan on getting back inside the house, uncaring how the girls' parents would react if they asked questions. All Lotso wanted was to get back inside with Daisy, with his friends, as they belonged.
But it was too late.
Chuckles had watched in horror as Daisy put down the book, revealing another Lotso, and Daisy hugged him. He also watched the heartbreaking expression on Lotso's face. Chuckles was a fairly old toy, he had seen this happen many times in the past but he had been luckier than most toys who came to see ownership by a child meant going through the same cycle of being found, owned, and loved over and over again before they were abandoned.
But Lotso had only had one owner in his lifetime. But it shouldn't have made him sad, then angry and then ranting that Daisy didn't love them and that she had replaced them, not in a span of a minute.
It wouldn't be until years later when Chuckles the Clown had the opportunity to think and when he was away from Sunnyside and away from Lotso's dictatorial draconian regime at the school that he began to see where Lotso was coming from. He didn't like where his mind had gone when he had spoken to other toys who had seen Lotso's philosophy and some of them even agreed with it, which was one of the reasons why not many toys bothered fighting back against Lotso.
But at the time…
At the time, Chuckles had been shocked by how angry and full of hatred Lotso became, and as the years passed it became an unspoken rule to even mentioned the word/name Daisy in Lotso's presence. It made him explode with rage. But back then…..When Lotso saw Daisy, he had been overjoyed and as he had looked at her through the window reading that book, he'd had plans on how to get inside the house and being with her once more. But it was when she closed the book, revealing that other version of him that Lotso's entire world began unravelling before his plastic eyes. Daisy had replaced him as if he was nothing. A part of him tried to make sense, to make reason of the whole unholy vision in front of him. It was well known among toys that parents sometimes did not have any time for their children, and didn't bother taking any note of their toys.
For a moment Lotso tried to make excuses for Daisy, mentally saying the girl's parents had been faced with an upset little girl, so one of them had tried to calm her down while the other had immediately rushed out to buy another Lotso. That made sense, and yet when Lotso came to that realisation it was drowned out by his anger. He and his friends had been forced to walk home - no, it wasn't home - through the weather because the girl had stupidly dumped them someplace while she and her idiot parents had just taken her away without bothering to look around for them. Maybe, it occurred to Lotso, maybe they had travelled back to the spot where they'd had their picnic. I mean, adults weren't completely that stupid, some of them had to have some intelligence. It wouldn't have been impossible for them to return to the picnic site and then they discovered the toys were gone.
Once that happened the parent would have had no choice but to buy a new Lotso.
Maybe…
Maybe they had even bought a new clown, a new baby.
But maybe wasn't good enough. The thought of him and his friends being abandoned and then replaced behind their backs made him angry and despondent.
But the most painful thing of all was how he had been replaced, and it was possible that after what had happened to him and his friends, this Lotso would be abandoned as well, and replaced with another. That was when he snapped with the realisation that to a kid, a single version of a toy could be just dumped someplace and then replaced without a thought.
She don't love us anymore.
And so ends my first Toy Story contribution. I hope you all enjoyed it, and please let me know what you think.