Everyone is talking about it these days, thanks to the Black Friday madness surrounding a few certain toys.

31 years ago was the Cabbage Patch Craze, frenzy, nightmare for parents whose kids really wanted those dolls!!

My parents…were one of the unfortunate many.

I wanted a cabbage patch. I wanted it BAD. Just like everyone else on the planet.

For weeks my mom searched, every store in the Buffalo area (where I grew up), was sold out. The phenomenon had made it impossible to find a Cabbage Patch doll in the Western New York area, it seemed. She got so desperate to make me happy, she made me a homemade version of a Cabbage Patch (that I still have, actually).

At the same time, my brother played hockey. A lot. On a travel team with a group of kids, at least one of whom would become an Olympian and eventual Pro Hockey player.

That travel team aspect meant I was dragged along all over the east coast and Canada to go to stupid hockey games. I got to see a lot of neat places, but I had to watch stupid hockey.

One one such tournament we were somewhere in Canada. I can’t say for sure where, because honestly at the time I didn’t care. I was trapped where I didn’t want to be, with annoying teenage boys.  I did have my books, that was good. It kept me pretty occupied, ignoring the chaos in the hotel halls of the boys playing hall-hockey (what? You never played? It’s fun! Mini-sticks…wait, I’m digressing).

One afternoon we were all hanging around in the hotel room, bored and waiting on the game to start in a few hours. For once, the hotel was pretty quiet, I’m not even sure why.

It was…until suddenly a voice BOOMED down the hallway:

“THERE ARE CABBAGE PATCH DOLLS AT THE TOYS R US ACROSS THE STREET!! I REPEAT: THERE ARE CABBAGE PATCH DOLLS AT THE TOYS R US ACROSS THE STREET!”

My mom took one look at me, another at my dad, then threw on her coat and joined the MASS exodus from the hotel.

Everyone, and I do mean everyone, made a mad dash and bought out the Toys R Us across the street from the hotel.

That, my dear friends, is how I got Daisy. The first in a string of Cabbage Patch Dolls.

Did you have one? Do you remember how she or he came to live with you?