Christmas Gifts at Chez Moose
Posted by Moose on January 10th, 2007. Filed under: Tis the Season.I keep expecting to open the newspaper and discover that Big Bird has been reported missing. Or that Prairie Jane [edit: an intrepid commenter noted that it's actually Prairie Dawn] was found in the East River wearing a fetching pair of cement shoes. There’s a muppet killer on the loose, people. Some heinous individual cut off Cookie Monster’s head, laminated it, and stuck it on my kitchen counter. Sick bastard.
Above is the crowning glory of my Christmas haul. Below is what I get just for existing. And being cute. Behold my own personal reading chair:
Here’s what it looked like approximately 15 minutes after I got it:
No flat surface is safe in my house. Neither are muppets, apparently.
Another Christmas gift was a knife skills class. I got all excited and immediately began imagining the criminals I would capture by whipping a knife out of my boot and hurling it so it would catch the hapless criminal’s hand, pinning it to a convenient wall. I’d stand there tapping my toe and looking superior while waiting for the police to arrive. I also imagined impressing people at parties by slicing a donkey tail in half with my perfectly thrown paring knife. I wiggled gleefully in my daydreams of bad ass knife tossing until being informed that actually? This is a class on how to cut vegetables. I felt rather ripped off until I realized that cutting veggies without severing a major artery is a more practical skill. I have yet to encounter a criminal, but I’ve shed quite a bit of blood on the cutting board. In fact, my right index finger is even now sporting a gash I gave myself when cutting a loaf of bread. A loaf of bread, people. It’s a wonder my hands aren’t fingerless stumps.
I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking it’s all about me, right? What I got. Well, yes. Yes, it is. But I did give a few very thoughtful (and damn hard to find) gifts. In fact, you will laud my generosity. My selfless acts designed to ensure another’s happiness.
It has been mentioned (in tones of increasing strength and shrillness) that I eat all the snacks. I say, if you take a week to eat a small bag of cheetos, you don’t deserve snacks. It’s inhumane to keep Cheetos in limbo for days on end, wondering if this could be the final moment. The one directly before being tossed down a dark hole with sharp teeth, chomped to pieces, and swallowed so whatever shreds are left drown in stomach acid. “No, wait this is my last moment,” thinks the terrified Cheeto. “No? OK, here it comes…. Oh, wait. He left the kitchen.” Is that any way for Cheetos to live? I DIDN’T THINK SO.
Far better to eat them all at once and minimize their terror.
But I came to realize that I had no right to dictate how others eat their snacks. Doing so made me no better than an evangelical who preaches damnation and hellfire because your male accountant wears a pink tie and references boyfriend (Mick) and poodle (Sparky) on his Christmas cards.
So I spent hours searching for any place that might boast a box with a lock. I finally found one, complete with carrying handle, and filled it with Cheetos.
Because nothing in my world says “I love you” like letting you lock up all the snacks.*
~~~
* Don’t be too touched. I wouldn’t have done it if the nearest corner store was further than 20 feet away from the front door.
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January 10th, 2007 at 1:59 pm
In our first apartment, we had a chair in our bedroom which was really more of a chair-shaped pile of clothes, because that was where everything landed. Why put clean clothes awaywhen you can just toss them on the chair? Much more convenient!
January 10th, 2007 at 2:23 pm
When you mentioned the cookie monster cookie jar, I am not sure what I envisioned, but it did not rock like that one does.
I have a Spongebob Karaoke machine…maybe Cookie and Sponge would like to set up a playdate.
January 10th, 2007 at 2:40 pm
Your issues with certain people who snack certain ways mean that you should never buy me a bag of cheetos. Because I will eat a few. and then stop. And then maybe eat a few more, savouring the cheesiness.
And then I will wrap up the bag for later.
In illustration: Three weeks ago, I bought a small bag of BBQ-flavoured rice cakes (yes, I am a hippie). The bag is probably about a quarter full, still. I nibble. I eat by the handfuls.
Fruit, however, in my house is not safe.
To talk less about me, and more about you: I love that chair. LOVE! it’s so … red. and pretty! I must appreciate that chair.
January 10th, 2007 at 3:03 pm
it’s prairie DAWN.
January 10th, 2007 at 6:50 pm
You’re awesome. Oh, and, also: so is that chair.
January 10th, 2007 at 9:58 pm
I have reading chair envy!
January 10th, 2007 at 10:39 pm
That’s why I like you. You are kind to Cheetos. I feel the same way a rack of ribs.
January 10th, 2007 at 11:05 pm
Dude, your chair rocks! Well, not literally, of course. Maybe you should actually read on it. Just a thought!
January 11th, 2007 at 11:21 am
So with luck from the half price ticket fairies we are going to see Avenue Q on Saturday. (Cross your fingers!) After ice skating at the Tower of London, yipppeee!!
January 12th, 2007 at 10:08 am
Just found your site today – LOVE your writing! I’ll be a regular reader for two reasons … you’re fabulous writing and the fact that you live in my favorite city … the city which I left nearly five years ago in exchange for a bigger house with a yard and parking. We told ourselves the kid needed the yard in which to play. We now know better – sigh.
January 12th, 2007 at 8:53 pm
So… his friends notice the key the his keyring.
“That doesn’t look like a car key.”
“Oh, that? That is the Cheeto key. It’s great really.”
January 13th, 2007 at 3:29 am
Forget the reading chair. TARGET FLEECE!!! CONGRATULATIONS!!!
OK, so most people would be more excited about the chair, but you know how I feel about my Target fleece.
January 13th, 2007 at 6:00 pm
That? Is a fine chair. A regal chair.
I see your furniture succumbs to the same invasion by foreign objects problem as ours. The dresser in our bedroom is actually a laundry limbo area–clothes that are still kinda clean, and not quite dirty enough for laundry pile on top of the dresser. The laundry mountain stays there and gets picked over until it eventually falls to the floor where the cats sleep on it and make it officially dirty.
January 15th, 2007 at 5:49 pm
Cool chair! I’m impressed – unlike you, I don’t believe I have ANY photos of my furniture without a load of junk on them.
January 15th, 2007 at 8:34 pm
I LOVE that chair.