What’s yours? Everyone has one, the type of thing that when you show to a friend or someone else they just look at you with a look that says “What the hell IS this?”
Mine is Carlton Haselrig’s passport. You may remember him as a football player who got heavily into drugs and ruined his career. Well he’s from my hometown, and my grandfather found his passport in an alley in downtown Johnstown, PA. It has everything in it, his picture, receipts from a supermarket, and some paper with phone numbers for “Hawk” and “Frankie”. Just really really bizarre.
So what do you have that makes everyone else say “HUH?”
at the moment, I’d have to say my small (2-3 gallon) black cauldron. But then, it goes nicely with my sword collection.
It used to be “the ugly lamp,” which had an oval base, circular fluorescent bulb, burgundy lampshade and for the stem, two deer feet. Ugliest damn thing I ever saw. It was given to me under two conditions: that I display it proudly, and I was not to throw it away–rather, I had to give it to someone who would agree to the same two conditions.
That’s a tough one, given my collector nature, but I’d have to say that my Herbert Hoover action figure–from the “Leaders of the World” series ranks right up there.
The rubber chicken I have suspended by a piece of dental floss round its neck, hanging in the middle of my room. I just have a really strange sense of decor I guess… I mean, when I first thought about doing it what my brain said was “Ohhhhh! COOL!” :rolleyes: Heh y’all should see some of the reactions it gets…but no one has recognized my artistic genius yet, it seems.
With other items from foreign trips, I have a souvenir from a visit to Spain during their Semana Santa festival. It’s a character that looks like a KKK member with a blue hood over his head. In Spain, these are participants in a religious festival that occurs during the week before and including Easter Sunday. When people see it, they look twice, then they look puzzled. I know what they’re thinking, so I explain. BTW: Wonderful festival; splendid country to visit.
Why, that would be Loafman™, the delightful skeleton with squeaking viscera I got from Pcubed in the White Elephant swap. But, we also have a “Booya Pot Table”. What is a “Booya Pot Table”, you ask? Well, it is an octagonal, low table with a removable metal pot in the center of it. It was left in the basement of this house when we bought it. We have never used it, but it looks like it has been used in the past. Maybe it was a fad at one time, like fondue?
A intensely creepy pair of child-sized dressmakers dummies, constructed so that they are in a sitting position, with arms outstretched, and without faces. Found 'em at a garage sale; I thought an artist friend might be able to use them, but she couldn’t, so now they sit in a closet.
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And give me nightmares.
A train hooter. One of those that goes WAAAH WAAH very loudly. (And, incidentally, one of the few things that has ever brought the domestic animals chez Eve to attention.)
I have an official California Highway Patrol bottle opener. Apparently they are not quite clear on the concept of don’t drink and drive. They gave them out free at the 2000 Democratic National Convention.
My grandfather who fought for the American side told me that he and his buddies liked to reply, “Yeah, we got mittens too.”
Strangely enough, Granddad’s unit was matched up against his future father-in-law’s unit for several months. Each of them held the other one personally responsible for their war wounds for the rest of their lives.
OK, I don’t have it anymore, but I once new a girl who was obsessed with the singer of the band Napalm Death. So obsessed that she took a half eaten sandwich that the guy threw away out of the garbage, and froze it. The sandwich somehow made its way to my freezer, where I left it for whoever rented the appartment after me.
