Fatale Abstraction

If you are easily repulsed, don't read this entry. Come to think of it, if you are easily repulsed you wouldn't be here anyway, so never mind.

I took the opportunity today to behave in a veal-like fashion in honor of the exceptionally cold weather. Husband, on the other hand, went into turbo mode and finally hung some shelves in my studio as well as completing other sundry tasks about the house, and he ended up poking about in one of the closets. At one point he actually held up the vacuum cleaner and asked "are you jealous of my girlfriend?" Ah, mirth.

Now mind you, although our large house is pretty full, we haven't by any means filled all closet/storage space, and other than a cursory wipedown of all closet shelves I could reach, I didn't climb on a ladder to see what was on the topmost shelves after we moved in. We moved in in July 2004 and these shelves have remained as they were when we took possession of the place. So today, in what was one of the teenage daughters' bedrooms, husband found the item in the photograph on a top shelf. A ziplock baggie containing a pack of former fat-free Butterball turkey cold cuts that have morphed into some altogether different life form.
Hmmm... hiding food waaaaay up in the closet? Sounds like an eating disorder to me. Husband said it was a frightening combination of the twin towers of ultimate stink: foot and ass, and I decided to take his word for it and not see for myself. You see how that works, kids? Trust your spouse at their word and build stronger bonds. Everyone's a winner.

Anyhoo... it kind of reminded me of the last house we bought, which was a 1910 fixer-upper in a quaint little historic district of a Dallas suburb. As soon as we closed the deal and got the keys, we went over to the house with a crowbar and prised open the hideous false front that had been built around the 7' long Victorian bathtub, but oh there were surprises within. The floor had rotted out below the bathtub tap, and there was a hole through which squirrels had secreted an enormous stash of nuts. At the other end of the tub, there was a false closure on an adjacent cabinet, and someone had left their own stash of 1979 Playboy and Penthouse magazines. The magazines were a bit worse for wear, as they had been exposed to moisture. What made them the most interesting was the ad on the back of one that featured O.J. Simpson coming correct with an afro in a Dingo boot ad. We laughed at these and threw them away, of course. About 5 minutes later someone invented ebay, and 5 minutes after that "someone" killed O.J.'s wife.

Perhaps the nearly ambulatory crap in that baggie would like to join the search for the real killers.