The Collection

This is what I wrote for writing exercise #5, which was a free write. I thought it was pretty clever. Any thoughts? Opinions? Let me know.

          I spend an unhealthy amount of time thinking about what would happen after I die. What happens after the service, after the funeral, the flowers, the trays of spicy mini meatballs and cheese cubes, after everyone is done thinking about my untimely death? Surely my parents, my mother especially, would want to go through my stuff. They would want to know what their kid was hoarding under their bed their entire life, or if there were any clues that might explain why I died so early in life. My biggest fear is not the dying part...it's what happens after I die, when my parents come across my collection of Beanie Babies.
       Can you imagine that, though? Can you imagine them sifting through their son's belongings, through his CD's and stashes of Dortios, and finding a tub of Beanie Babies? I swear, mom and dad, I can explain. There is a valid reason for this collection.
       My girlfriend, Jane, had been asking for a Build-A-Bear two weeks prior to her birthday. I tried to deter her from the idea for two reasons: the first one being that she was going to be 18, and no 18 year old begs for a teddy bear, and the second one was that I was broke. My new job did not pay nearly as much as my last one, and I couldn't afford to buy her a Build-A-Bear. So the morning of her birthday, I went to the local discount cards and gifts store to see if I could pick up something else for her. That was when I came across the first Beanie Baby.
       Now, being a good boyfriend, I thought long and hard about getting it for her. It's the same thing as a Build-A-Bear, right? But then, after I looked at it for a while, and laughed at it's clever pun name, I couldn't help myself. My girlfriend wouldn't appreciate it nearly as much as I would. So I bought the Beanie Baby, placed it carefully in my backpack, and bought her a Snickers bar and stuffed it in my backpack. She dumped me two days later.
      One Beanie Baby turned into another, then another, and another, until finally I had a storage bin filled to the brim with Beanie Babies. I take them out from time to time to make sure that they aren't damaged, and they need some air once in a while. It's got to be stuffy in that bin, you know? And then I slide the bin back into the far corner of my closet and dump my laundry on top of it to make sure that my mom never finds it.
     But after I die, it's safe to assume that my mom would find the bin. She would be picking at my clothes, crying over her son and how he was too lazy to do his laundry, and how bad his jerseys smell, and then she would look down and-BAM. There it is. The bin filled with Beanie Babies. And my mom would cry even harder because now she knows that her son is a lunatic and that she should have found these sooner.
     So next time you find yourself more than willing to play a game of Frogger when you are trying to cross the street, think twice. Do you want your parents finding your secret collection after you die? I thought so. Look both ways, wait until there aren't any cars, then cross. Your collection will stay a secret as long as you're alive.