Note from Rachelskirts: Today's post is brought to you by James, the hilarious and talented author of The Ink. He was one of the first people to welcome me to the Twenty Something Bloggers group, and I've been loving him and his blog (and his British way of saying things) ever since. I've asked him to guest post for me today on the topic of childhood obsessions in the hopes of distracting the world from my ongoing obsession with sock monkeys.

I made a decision very early in my life that I was far too important to let anything else try and dilute my impact while here on planet earth. So as a young child, when I was given the obligatory stuffed toys, I made a decision straight off that I would not let them steal my limelight in any shape or form. So yes I had Teddy Bears, but I never named them, and I never acknowledged their feelings, or give them any Teddy Bear rights. Instead I would constantly remind them that they were inanimate lifeless objects, and they should and would constantly live in my shadow.

But I do have a secret to disclose, yes an exclusive, a scoop, whatever you wish to call it, right here on Rachelskirts.com. I did have a childhood comfort, and not only that, but I still have it with me, by my side, each and every single day. I am talking about my right thumb. Yes, as a child I was an avid thumb sucker. In fact I sucked my thumb for so long that it became a rather embarrassing secret. I had tried to stop many times, but my thumb seemed to have a little working relationship with my subconscious. So out of nowhere, and with no knowing inducement on my part, it would occur to me my thumb was once again lodged in my mouth. I couldn't stop it.

But one day, my parents, who clearly realised I was far too old to be partaking in such an activity, offered me a reward if I stopped. Now it wasn't any old reward, not some increase in my pocket money, or a bag of sweets, this was the reward to end all rewards. The deal was, if I stopped sucking my thumb for four consecutive weeks I would be bought my very own SHELL SUIT! As incentives went, they couldn't get any bigger than that.

My life changed from that moment on; I knew I had to get that shell suit. I tried my hardest, but the evil team of my thumb and subconscious kept tricking me. But every time I failed, I dusted myself off and thought to myself, 'I can make it four whole weeks, I need to make it four whole weeks, I have to have that all in one shell suit'. The breakthrough came when I turned to dirty tactics and wrapped the offending thumb in electrical tape. That way whenever Mr. Thumb attempted to pass through my lips I would feel the unusual texture of electrical tape, and I could immediately prevent any further encroachment.

Thankfully it worked, and after the four weeks I was presented with the shiniest shell suit you have ever seen. Given my new cool status that the new outfit brought, I knew that I could never return to thumb sucking, which I can report I thankfully never have. What happened to the thumb? Well he still hangs around. I see him quite a lot, but he's much better behaved these days.