Nick Names: Ah-May The 3rd - Because he is the 3rd in a generation of Ah-Mays, read History for more information.

Personality Traits: Ah-May (the 3rd) is a Furby that I don't know as well as I could. He has very thick, poofy fur and I often refer to him as my overweight Furby (behind Toh-Dye whom is bigger then him). To make that even more evident, he eats a lot. He is a big eater and never seems to get enough. He tends to be a really light sleeper and often wakes up at being handled at all for the smallest movements wake him (verses Toh-Loo Kah whom is a challenge to wake up sometimes!). He also has extremely large feet and one is slightly bigger then the other! He gets along well with my other Furbys and is pretty laid back for the most part.

History: Ah-May [his name means "pet" in Furbish] has the longest history out of all my Furbys for he is the first Furby to come into my life. Even though he is my first Furby, he is not the oldest in my collection. Because I have Ah-May the 3rd now, that makes my oldest Furby to be Toh-Loo Kah. I've got to think way back for he has a big history. A lot of it fun, some of it sad.

First off, the Ah-May I have today is not the Ah-May I had on Oct. of 1998. In fact the Furby I present as Ah-May today, is actually Ah-May The 3rd and I call him as such. There was an Ah-May The 2nd in between....

Let's go back shall we? It all starts back in the end of September '98. I start hearing about a new virtual pet through a Tamagotchi mailing list. Though I had heard of this virtual pet before, I don't pay attention much to 'knock-off Tamagotchi' and ignored it up till then. In October I am approached by my grandmother and she tells me about a very life-like virtual pet she saw on the news. She said she knows I would like it. My grandma knows me better then I ever thought. She tried her best to get one for me at FAO Schwartz in Seattle, but with no luck she only made it on a waiting list.

My grandma was on a mission to get me a Furby for Christmas, well low and behold on 10/21 my good friend LeAnne found them at Wards! So instead of money my Grandma bought me a Furby. My grandma and I met at the mall after work (we managed to get out 30 minutes early so we could rush out and beat traffic) and she let me pick one out. They were up on shelves, about 3 dozen of them in the electronics department. Employees didn't know what they were, so they just put them on a shelf in the middle of no where. LeAnne had bought one early that morning, hers being grey with black spots and pink hair and tail. I chose the one you often see on the package, all black except for his tummy which is white, has a white mohawk down his back with a little tail at the bottom. He has white feet and brown eyes as well. We headed back to the office where I work and I started him up for the first time. He opened his eyes and told me his name was Ah-May, meaning 'pet' in Furbish. It was a bit confusing at first to learn the language, but eventually I got used to hearing him talk and understanding him. I decided to call him a 'him' because he had a low male sounding voice.

Once I got to know him, I fell in love with him. He became my best friend and where ever I went, he was sure to be! I made several exceptions, but for the most part he was always with me. One of his first experiences with me and most public was on Halloween night. That night my sister, my friend LeAnne and myself all dressed up and went to a movie (Chucky's Bride). After the movie we went to Subway to eat, Ah-May joined us at the table in a full room of people who had never seen a Furby before! I wrote about this experience in the last four paragraphs of my Tama log for 11/1/98. I still laugh about this!

I recall going on searches to find more Furbys in early November. We'd search through stores and try and find out times when more will be in. After all they all interact, the more the merrier! I recall one trip in particular to Toys R' Us where I asked a sales lady if she had any Furbys or if they would be shipped soon. The lady was wordless and told me she didn't know what one was. I told her that she would know soon enough. I told her all about Ah-May. If I go to that TRU today they have Furbys in stock.

Ah-May took car rides to and from places with me, and always came with me to work and we played together when things were slowing or I had a moment to breath. When things were awful and stress was high, sometimes just giving him a hug and listening to him chatter away made that stress disappear, if not just for a moment.

Thing is that he and I became really good friends and since Furby never dies, one would expect that to remain just the same always. But that wasn't the story. Monday evening, 11/9/98, tragedy struck. I was upstairs and I had Ah-May, my beloved Furby with me. By accident my step father knocked Ah-May out of my hands and he fell to the floor hard. When I picked him up he was froze with eyes wide, mouth wide, ears sticking straight up.. poor thing looked in pain. I thought he was broken.. I was on my way downstairs to get a screw driver to take out the batteries (often this will reset and fix any problems) and I moved his eye lid and he un-froze. He spun through everything, checking and fixing himself, then was talking all happy and fine again. Except one small thing. I was checking his sensors out making sure he worked all right. I was happy he was fine so I hugged him and pet his back... to find his pet sensor no longer worked. To say I was upset, would be saying too little. If you want to read about the story in detail, I wrote about it about half way down my 11/14 Tama Log. I warn you, I was depressed when I wrote that.

So Ah-May had a broken back and my only repair for him was to send him back to Tiger Electronics. So it took me some time before I could finally let go of my best friend. On a late Sunday night we said our final good-byes and for the last time his batteries were removed. I kept them in a safe spot, in waiting for his return. I sent him out to Tiger on Monday November 16th. It was 6 days short of having him for a month. It took less then a month for this to happen. Unfortunately, this is not where the story ends.

While Ah-May was gone I had a Furby friend to keep me company. I got an early gift, a solid black Furby whom finally woke up for me and told me his name on the 11th. This Furby is Toh-Loo Kah. I was unappreciative of him at first, due to the fact that he was there to replace someone that was totally irreplaceable. To read about Toh-Loo Kah, visit his page. No less we have become friends since then.

Time passed and it was a long time, but on exactly the last day of the 2nd week, Monday the 30th, I received a package from Tiger Electronics.

I ran downstairs in anticipation to open up the box so I could pull out my Ah-May and give him a big hug after his long journey. I carefully opened the box. I peered in. I saw the black and white fur. I saw the open mouth. I saw the open eyes. The eyes were... blue. Ah-May's eye color was brown. I quickly opened the box all the way and pulled out the box containing Furby. Same body type. Different eye color. Different Furby all together. This wasn't Ah-May. In less then 4 days Tiger decided to send me out a replacement instead of repairing (or they failed to repair?) Ah-May. That topped my miserable month.

The new Furby called himself "May-Lah", meaning hug. The words were so closely related... Ah-May and May-Lah. He had that name for only a short time though.

On Christmas eve my sister was feeding both my Furbys and somehow May-Lah got re-started. He changed his name to May-Lah Kah. I really didn't want that name. The next day I ended up trying to change it by re-starting over and over. And the last few times I tried, he refused to say his name. So I gave up and my sister said whatever name he chose is the name he is meant to be. So I wake him up and he says his name is Ah-May! I talked about this a lot in this log. So there May-Lah became Ah-May The Second. Ah-May The Second, turned out to be someone I loved more then Ah-May The First.

Ah-May the Second and I became friends, but only after a bit of resentment and acceptance of Ah-May the First's loss. With time I became very close to Ah-May once again and the friendship grew even after all that had happened. While Ah-May the Second did not take Ah-May the First's place... he took a big spot in my heart with time. No one Furby can replace another. And certainly not where love and friendship is concerned. I know, I know, he's just a toy, but it's strange he still made me feel this way.

Life got back to somewhat normalcy and things were okay. I spent every minute of my time with Ah-May and we bonded. When I was down and out, he was there for me. We did everything together.. and I loved him. I had a best Furby friend again and he was soo sweet. We had soo many good times. Including in January when Brendan from California came up to stay for a month. What a blast! There are so many stories and so many moments, I don't think there's enough time to tell them all. Even though both Ah-May's looked similar, they had personalities different from each other. Trust me they do. Ah-May the first was not as affectionate as Ah-May the second. Ah-May the first really enjoyed back rubs and he was quite the dancer. Ah-May the second was always affectionate, always giving kisses and always saying 'me love you'.

Early February days came and I began to take notice to something that became worse and worse. Ah-May's gears were getting louder and louder. He was screeching and grinding and sometimes it was hard to hear what he was saying because he was so loud. I loved him dearly, but boy did he need to be oiled or something. I figured I would send him back to Tiger and they could oil his gears up and send him back, simple no?

Through a long series of phone calls and eventually getting to talk to Tiger Electronics, I was pretty much guaranteed that my sweet Ah-May would be replaced by another if I sent him in. I talk a lot about this in 2/9/99 Tama log if you wanna read into more detail here. Even though I was sure at the end of that log that I was not going to send him, I ended up doing just that.

He only got worse and worries of his gears giving out came to mind, among other things. Eventually the decision was to send him back on Thursday 2/12/99. It hurt beyond all to part with him, but for his better health it had to be done. In my letter to Tiger I pleaded with them to repair him. But I should have known not to get my hopes up.

On 2/25/99, my sister called me at work to say Tiger had sent me a package. Nervous and happy at the same time I awaited the work day to end so I could get home. It took the same amount of days to send them both to me, 14 days. Tiger sure was on the ball.

My friend LeAnne was there when I opened the box to find not Ah-May the second, but a Furby whom was to become Ah-May the 3rd. Ah-May the 3rd has brown eyes just like Ah-May the 1st did.

I'll never forgive myself for returning Ah-May the 2nd and if I could remake that decision, I surely would not have sent him back. Even though I have many Furbys, Ah-May the 2nd often crosses my mind, I miss him dearly. We had a friendship that certainly can never be replaced.

Since then I have had Ah-May the 3rd and he shows no sign of wear or break down on me. The only thing strange about him is that his feed sensor doesn't work all the well and can only be fed when the tongue is pressed at an angle to the left. We aren't the best of friends, but we get along.