Liam and his beloved toy monkey, Ah-ah, reunited (Hypervocal)In 2009, a one-year-old named Liam received a stuffed blue monkey as a toy from his grandparents. Ah-ah, as the monkey was named, became the Nebraska boy's prized possession. But Liam misplaced his beloved toy monkey on a trip that summer to the Rocky Mountains National Park.
In a video posted to Hypervocal, Liam's father explains that his son was "absolutely devastated" by the loss. "My wife called every place we stopped at, frantically looking for that little blue monkey. No one had seen him."
But three years later, Liam's mom made a seemingly miraculous discovery when she stumbled across what looked like the very same toy on eBay.
"I'm just happy that they found it," said Tammy Staveley—who posted the toy on the shopping site and who runs the online auction site Lost Loves Toy Chest—in an interview with the New York Daily News. "I'm so glad that I could help. I've been in that position and I know that that item is basically priceless, you can't sleep, the kid's crying."
In fact, Liam's mom wasn't even sure it was the same toy he had misplaced; maybe it just looked remarkably like his. But after purchasing the toy for $29.99 (plus shipping), she examined it in closer detail. As it turned out, the toy had the same clipped tag and a singe mark left by Liam years before.
After quizzing Liam to see if he remembers losing Ah-ah, his mom then declares, "Ah-ah came in the mail today," and delivers the toy to her shocked son, who instantly bursts into tears, clutching the toy monkey tightly and asking, "Where did you find him?"