What the heck?

I've always loved going to thrift stores. We don't have time for me to list all the reasons why, but sometimes, it's just dang funny.

Approximately 15ish years ago, I was at a thrift store with my dear friend John. John was one of those guys who kept you laughing all. the. time. Especially me. I've gotten in trouble for laughing more in my life than I have for talking, if you can believe that. He had the uncanny way of saying something super funny, all while keeping a straight face. Then people would look at me, in a puddle of giggles and John so straight faced and think I was just crazy. Well, that's probably not the only reason why, but let's not linger there.

We have this guy to get to.

So John and I are at the thrift store, 15ish years ago, and we were laughing our way through it. He was several aisles over, when I spotted the strangest, weirdest thing. It was a super creepy headless statue. I picked it up, held it up high where John could see it, and I said, "What the heck do you suppose this thing's head looks like?"

He didn't miss a beat. From several aisles over, he bent over, and stood up and said, "THIS!" It was the even stranger head to the statue I was holding. We both just lost it. I sat down right there in the thrift store and laughed until I cried. What were the chances that he was standing right next to the head to my statue? Holy cow.

We decided we just had to have it. The cashier looked at us like we were mad, buying a broken, hideous statue. I think she even tried to give it to us, but I insisted on buying it.

We took it back to the restaurant we both worked at, and the whole wait staff thought it was hilarious. Somebody found some glue and we all glued its head back on. As we all stepped back to admire our handy work, John said, "It's probably some voodoo horror doll, and the only way to break the spell was to break its head off. And here we've reattached the head. Some native somewhere is in a lot of pain..."

I loved this little guy so much. He traveled to all my homes with me, and he never ceased to be a topic of conversation, as you can imagine. People would say, "What the heck is that?"

I do wonder who made this and WHY? Oh the questions...

So when I was cleaning out the laundry room the other day, I came across my friend, stashed away and forgotten. His head had come off again, to the relief of some native far away. Seeing him again made me laugh so hard, so I dusted him off, reattached his head, and sat him in my kitchen. Some poor native is, well, you know...


I kind of like him there...