Friday, July 07, 2006

Home is Where The Fake Monkies Are



Personally, when I have a home someday (be it a trailer or a recently deceased husbands mansion) I will decorate it according to my own personal taste.

My taste is a Expensive/Goth blend I like to call “Jewitch: the darker side of JAP”.

This will include things like a taxidermy room filled with professionally stuffed rare birds with diamonds for eyes, a chandelier made entirely of onyx and rubies, black leather interior by Philip Stark, a shark tank, and a coffee table made entirely out of fetus replicas encased in crystal.

I know my style isn’t for everyone, but it’s my dream house, and that's how it’s gonna be.

With so many styles out there everyone’s concept of good taste is unique, however, I would venture to say that more people would prefer to live in a house I decorated than one my mother had.

Even when I was growing up, I knew something wasn’t quite right about the way my mother had decorated our home. I knew this because all the other mommy’s had hired interior decorators like normal people, and all of my friends lived in nearly identical houses filled with crystal and Lladro and multi million dollar paintings no one was really sure were any good.

But not our home.

Oh no, my mother added her “personal touch” to the decoration of each room, thus creating a style similar to that which you might expect from someone who was raised in a mental institution, released into a trailer park, and than given a platinum Amex and asked to decorate a house in the suburbs.

The picture above doesn't even begin to give you an idea of the tzochkes that cover every surface, but it was the most recent acquisition that I discovered. What is it you ask? Why, it is a necessity for any home.... a butter knife with a cartoon bat/ clear plastic, rainbow glitter filled handle, of course! It was part of a set. It’s counterpart had a pumpkin. I guarantee it cost no less than $50.

But that knife doesn't hold a giant, metallic silver, glitter covered pillar candle (we have five) to the rest of the decorations.

It’s hard to pick a favorite.... the golden calf milk pourers, the crystal candy holder that’s covered in beaded golden mesh so that it looks like the crystal jar version of a drag queen, the monkies-in-top-hats table setting, the golf cart sized fake flower wall installations... they’re all pretty note worthy.

If I had to pick, I would say it was a toss up between the ceramic pig’s head with an apple in it’s mouth that she’s hung on the wall and used as a flower holder, and four foot salt shaker replica she uses to store Splenda.

Of course, nothing says class like the fake persian, dog fur and urine soaked rugs that cover every floor.

Had I grasped the severity of the situation as a child, perhaps it wouldn't have come as such a shock to me when she dressed me up as a pilgrim and my sister as an indian princess before sending us to school the week before thanksgiving.

Why didn’t my father do something about this disaster, you ask? Well, his sense of “style” as it were wasn’t much better. We were lucky if he remembered to put pants on before leaving the house. Had we left it up to him, our home probably would have looked eerily like a prison cell, which I guess ultimately would have been worse than living in a life size doll house that looked like the prototype for a show called “Tacky Eye for The Crazy Housewife”.

Over time, I’ve come to accept this as part of the charmingly eccentric (read:bat shit crazy) personality that makes her who she is.