First Bath
When your CURIO® emerges from the marble, you’ll want to rinse the goo from its body. Hold it in the palm of your hand and run lukewarm water over it for a minute or two, then lay it on a towel and let it roll itself dry.
Initial Imprint
If you have a CureSleeve® (sold separately), you can start using it now. It looks just like an extra-long MagicSleeve® with a much larger contact opening and a bigger, opaque windowpocket, as well as a rugged, tubular dropper-bottle-holder built into one end of it, doesn’t it? That’s pretty much what it is! Put it on like a MagicSleeve®, unfasten the windowpocket’s closure(s), and lay your CURIO® on the part of your forearm exposed by the contact opening. If you’re going to be staying in one place for a while, feel free to leave the windowpocket closure(s) unfastened. If you feel like moving around, though, shut it. One of the best, most convenient aspects of the CureSleeve® (sold separately) is that your CURIO® doesn’t need to leave it to hydrate. Just unscrew the end of the dropper-bottle-holder, remove the dropper-bottle, fill it with cold water, return it to the holder, and screw the holder’s cap back on. Now your CURIO® has a steady supply of water!
If you don’t have a CureSleeve® (sold separately), that’s okay, too. Set your CURIO® stomach-down, or on its side, upon your arm. If you’re wearing a long-sleeved shirt, we suggest you place your CURIO® on your wrist. If you’re wearing a short-sleeved shirt, we suggest you place your CURIO® on your shoulder. Most of the time, your CURIO® will gently hold to your flesh, but sometimes, to prevent cramping, it will seek to change the position of its limbs, and so will roll over, grab onto the fibers on the inside of your shirt with its claws or (if available) its tail, and push, thus securing itself against your skin.
Whether you’re using a CureSleeve® or not, you’ll probably be tempted to look upon and admire, close up, the cutting-edge design and better-than-lifelike senso-emotional response patterns of your freshly emerged soft automaton®. Go ahead! Just remember that your nascent CURIO®—between having been out of contact with your body heat, drying itself after its rinse, and being subject to all the many computations its SECRT® apparatus has been rapidly performing since emergence—will have expended a lot of energy, and will need to shut its eyes and suspend most SECRT® activity for a while. Let it. And once you grow tired of watching it suspend, you should, by all means, feel free to do things around the house or engage in light play with friends.
You may be tempted to fall asleep with your CURIO® without added protection: don’t. There’s nothing worse than waking up to find a lifelike best friend that thinks it’s one’s pet irreparably smashed and/or suffocated beneath one’s body by accident, even if that lifelike friend-pet is only a robot. If you have a SlumberHardTube® (sold separately), then when it’s bedtime, just remove your CURIO® from the windowpocket of the CureSleeve®, place the SlumberHardTube® in the windowpocket, lay your CURIO® in the SlumberHardTube®, close the SlumberHardTube®, and fasten the windowpocket’s closure(s).
If you don’t have a CureSleeve® and SlumberHardTube® (both sold separately), then, before going to bed, return your CURIO® to its PillowNest® (sold separately) or shoebox and shut the lid.
Energizing Your CURIO’S® Regular, Daily Functioning
Did we say that energizing your CURIO’S® autoconstruction was easy? Energizing its regular, daily functioning is even easier. It can consume just about anything you eat, as long as it also consumes one WorkPellet® per day. (NOTE: just as CURIOS® are able to process the same foods as human beings, their SECRT® apparatuses can terminally malfunction if they consume substances that are toxic to human beings.)
WorkPellets® supply your CURIO® not only with all the chemicals required for the full functionality of its SECRT® apparatus, but with chemicals vital to the proper processing of human foods, should you choose to supplement its energy intake with human foods. (NOTE: energizing your CURIO® with non-WorkPellets®-brand pellets is discouraged and will void your 90-day warranty.)
As for HOW to get your CURIO® to consume energy, there’s nothing to it. Pinch a WorkPellet® or bit of human food between your thumb and forefinger, hold it in front of your CURIO’S® face, and see for yourself. In its silky-mouthed nascence, your CURIO® won’t be able to do much more than gnaw and suck at the WorkPellet®/human food-bit before it, but soon enough (by the end of week three at latest), it’ll have a full set of teeth, excellent motor control, and will gladly take its energy rations into its own hands. Literally!
In addition to its daily WorkPellet®, all a CURIO® needs for sustenance is one thimbleful of water per day. If you have a CureSleeve® in which you keep your CURIO® during most of the day, or a SlumberHardTube® in which your CURIO® suspends every night, don’t think twice: all CURIOS® emerge from their marbles with full dropper-bottle-tip-sucking functionality, and, as long as you refill it at least once every 48 hours, the dropper-bottle will provide your CURIO® all the hydration it requires.
If you are without a CureSleeve®, or if you don’t use a CureSleeve® or SlumberHardTube® in the manner described above, we suggest placing a SipThimble® (sold separately) filled to the brim with cold water in the marbleslit of the PillowNest® (sold separately), or on a relatively flat part of the soft material with which you’ve lined your shoebox.
Odors and Grime
If your CURIO’S® energy intake is restricted to WorkPellets®, it will, unless it gets something smelly on its skin or velvet, give off a faint odor of grape-flavored bubblegum. If your CURIO®, in addition to WorkPellets®, consumes human food, it may produce other, less pleasant odors that will make you want to bathe it. A buildup of grime or a matted-down look to your CURIO’S® velvet might also cause you to want to bathe it. Go ahead and do so! Just don’t use soap, which can irritate your CURIO’S® skin.
Rear Ejections
If your CURIO® stays to a strict diet of WorkPellets®, you will find a dry, glossy-black sphere the size of a pea, and redolent of grape-flavored bubblegum, in the SlumberHardTube®, PillowNest®, or shoebox every morning. This sphere is firm as a marble, and it is your CURIO’S® daily rear ejection, which derives its name from having been ejected through your CURIO’S® rear. It is waste. Remove the rear ejection and flush it down the toilet, where all such things belong. Then wash your hands.
(NOTE: If your CURIO® does not stay to a strict diet of WorkPellets®, the color and odor of its rear ejections will be different from the color and odor of the rear ejections described above. Thankfully, the consistency of the rear ejections will remain the same.)