Beany Babies and Hand Grenades

[rgraham666]

A house needs a fucking big bed.

Or should that read a big fucking bed?

Seconded.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Looking around my livingroom, here's some of the things I see:

--tenor saxophone lying on piano
--Books in shelves, ill-matched, stacked any which way for easy grabbing
--Furniture, likewise ill-matched, but comfortable (great sleeping couch)
--Afghans and needlepoint pillows from my late mom, an inveterate needle jockey (also great for sleeping)
--shaggy, overweight dog
--Two guitars, an ancient fiberglass National electric and a very rare Baldwin Bison
--tiny, hyperactive kitten
--styrofoam model of a Neon atom standing next to three harmonicas where the tiny, hyperactive kitten can't get at it
--A baby moon hubcap hanging on the wall
--A 20-gallon terrarium containing 3 arrow frogs with a heat lamp on top of it
--A framed picture of Larry from the Three Stooges
--Two of those stupid CD racks, the tall, thin ones that always fall over
--A Homer SImpson bookmark hanging on the wall
--a swag lamp
--a broken banker's lamp over the computer that only shines upwards
--a color postcard of a '62 Cadillac convertible on cinder blocks, handsomely framed
--A paper mache mask of Ganesha, the Hindu God of good fortune
--Two of the ugliest fucking candles I've ever seen, kids' gifts to my wife
--A tiny plaster bust of Bachus hanging amidst a bunch of plastic grapes
--A bunch of other stuff

So no, a house should never look like a motel room, but the stuff should really relate to the people who live there. That's the point.

 

[BlackShanglan]

I like the glimpse into your room, Dr. M.

And a look at mine:

-4X6 foot whiteboard on the wall, scrawled over with markers and mingling plot changes for the novel with notes about appointments and "to do's"
-Three rows of stacked two-high folding bookshelves crammed with books, roughly organized at one point and now falling into chaos
- A wheeled, four-shelved book cart next to the red recliner with broad wooden arms in a pleasant modern design
- A six-foot carpeted cat tree with a stuffed bear and a spingy penguin hanging from it
- Two cats: a large, affectionate calico called Boots, currently drinking from a dog bowl larger than she is, and a small irate entity called Pounce, currently sitting on my lap desk and touching my wrist as I type.
- A clean-lined modern design desk somewhat obscured under a basket of long-dead flowers, a neo-primitive pottery bear, a CD binder I haven't bothered to unwrap or use since I bought it two months ago, a framed pencil drawing of a cat having a picnic, a list of my own writerly "do/don't" issues, a wire-loop-with-rubber-dangle cat toy, a rag for cleaning the whiteboard, a book of illustrations from Punch in the 1920's, and a boxed sextant made in 1865
- A giant stuffed multicolored jack, a spherical squeaky red pig with its ears bitten off, a shaggy stuffed dog, a half-gnawed femur cap, an extra-large Kong, a Kong biscuit ball, a grungy bone that was once white and sterilized, a small soccer ball toy on a rope, a cat's little fuzzball toy, a small stuffed mouse, and a tiger-striped glove with long extended fingers with pom-poms on them. All of these help to obscure a berber carpet once oatmeal in color and now defaced with ground-in dirt and a layer of pet hair.
- A multi-colored ceiling fan that fitted the child's room that this once was, and that I have still not bothered to replace (despite having bought its replacement) three years into living in this house - although I did repaint the walls from blue with white clouds and airplanes to a rather startling yellow.

 

[Xelebes]

The so-called recyclers - those people who keep bags and boxes of empty bottles, jars, plastic, stacks of newspaper, everything that they're planning to recycle but never actually seem to remove from the house. It's possible they bring garbage in off the street, too.

My grandparents did that. It took us over 20 truckloads (I'd assume about 5-10 metric tonnes) of crap. Ranging from ovens, fridges, typewriters, broken sofas to 200+ bags of old newspapers. When we moved in (circa 1998), there were newspapers declaring Gorbachev's resignation. Of course there were a few scrapbooks with newspaper clippings from the 30's through to the 60's that we kept but those newspapers in bags had to go. We also had 10 stacks of 1 and a half metres high purely of egg cartons. We had a pile of phone books dating from the mid seventies. We also had over 5,000 magnets stuffed in a large box which my grandfather kept from his old work - we still have it. Makes good fridge magnets and they are painted pretty colours. We keep them because they were fun. My sister took about a 1,000 of the magnets to herhand them out and I remember sitting in class bewildered why everyone was playing with magnets from my basement. What other crap was there... oh yes, the greates piles of junk kept there. There was the 1969 Ford Custom that was rusted out of work, stuffed with logs of wood from cutting down a tree 3 years earlier. Man, that was great trying to empty that piece of junk out.

All in all, I can safely say that we threw out between 5-10 metric tonnes, possibly more in two months as we cleaned out the place and moved in.

 

[yui]

Tupperware artfully displayed always gives me pause, but it usually just endears the person to me. Nascar collectibles displayed by women always trip a few alarms and enormous collections of anything kind of baffle me.

 

[elsol]

Oh yeah... wait... I know something that sends me running.

A 1.5 million dollar baseball.

Sincerely,
ElSol

 

[Belegon]

Ok, I am guilty of the weapon thing...got a limited edition Anduril sword forom LOTR about two feet away...I have a claymore on the wall upstairs too, and another sword leaning against the file cabinet... I have a lot of signed sports stuff, but most of it was signed just for me or my family, in our presence.

I will also admit to a few bottles with just a couple oz. left, but those are mostly good scotch that I can't bear to be "out" of...an can't afford to replace all at once...

*sigh* I have a lot of Star Wars figures and such in storage though...I got kinda nostalgic around '96-'97...but the only things still on display are a signed 8x10 of Han & Leia kissing (Fisher & Ford autographs) and a couple of my original toys from the '70s...

 

[elsol]

The things in my house that might send people running.

1) The seventy lb charging pitbull/bulldog puppy

2) The yellow volkswagen beetle

3) The teddy bears

4) The collection of Andrew Vachss books (My favorite character is Wesley so obviously I'm nuts)

5) The lack of furniture that is actually mine

6) The lean cuisine meals that fill my refrigerator

Uh... that's it.

Sincerely,
ElSol

 

[yui]

The things in my house that might send people running.

4) The collection of Andrew Vachss books (My favorite character is Wesley so obviously I'm nuts)

Sincerely,
ElSol

You are nuts...it's Burke all the way. I love Vachss.

 

[mlady_france]

. . .
--tenor saxophone lying on piano
. . .

Rock, rock on Dr M!

I love my tenor, but it's not on a piano. I don't think I could fit a piano in my aparment.

 

[silversword]

Just to join in on this one I read the Dr's original post and I have at least two of the original list.

Hand Grenade, not a novelty one though, this one was brought back front the trenches of the western front by a long passed away relative.

Weapons on the walls, I must confess that over my living room fireplace I have a couple of antique swords, items that combine my interest in sword fighting and military history.

I hope these items say more about me than, homicidal maniac!!!!

Apart from that I have my collection of guitars, a De-Armond Starfire... my pride and joy, a battered strat copy just for fun, a couple of acoustics and a mandolin which I still haven't found the time to learn to play.

Other than that I can think of anything else that would make people run from my house. Apart from perhaps my very protective dog.

 

[SeaCat]

Hmmmm, things that might make people run away from my place? I think I would have to start out with ME!

Cat

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

What a waste of time!


I thought Zoot meant 'The Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch!'