Show & Tell from Hell.

The Most Curious Curio Showdown is on!

First, I shall get you warmed up for what you’re about to see by sharing the objects of interest that were once in my possession. Instead of moving all this stuff across the country and back–or across the Strait of Georgia and back–they got Marie Kondo’d. I thanked these items for their service and disposed of them.

Bear in mind that most of these items were gifts rather than something I intentionally obtained. It does say a lot about how my friends perceive me, though.

In no particular order:

1. The Ram Rod. Details in this post.

2. Dog testicles.

3. A decapitated mummified head with its septum pierced. This was supposedly a prop in an episode of The X-Files. If you think you know which episode, please tell me.

I didn’t keep it for long because it reeked strongly of musty latex.

4. A leather snap cuff to wrap around the base of the nutsack. This scrotum belt had chains joined by a ring in the middle to support any weight one might want to attach.

I would love to explain this apparatus some more, except I don’t understand it even after owning it.

While no close-up photos exist, it makes a surprise appearance in the background of several photos.

Rather than suspend it from a body part, I suspended it from my ceiling and nestled one of my GIANTmicrobes in there. I believe Ulcer won the coveted spot in this testicle stretcher thingamajig.

5. Teeth from two people. Two friends thought, “I bet Laura would love to receive my teeth.”

They were wisdom teeth. Because most people get their wisdom teeth out before they hit their twenties, and this predated my digital camera days, I only have a remarkably poor-quality webcam photo of one of the sets.

6. 2L bottle of personal lubricant with a pump dispenser. I was re-stretching my ears and asked my roomie, Danica, if she had any lube I could use. She put this giant bottle in front of my bedroom door and told me, “It’s yours.”

I kept it on my bedside table, not caring whether it suggested that I had an arid no-no region.

7. Timk (the K is silent) the baby giant millipede who lived in a flaming igloo.

8. An Anne Geddes plushy with the face ripped out and replaced with Bob the Tomato from the Christian cartoon Veggie Tales.

9. The dresser seen in the background of the above photo:

10. A dilapidated hospital wheelchair which I used when shit-posting online.

11. An eight-gauge octopus hook with the barbed end ground off. Not notable until you learn of its odd origins.

It was one of the ten that was placed through my skin and suspended me from a ceiling when I was eighteen.

12. Two bright-coloured petticoats that I bought for no good reason. I wanted to be a person who wore petticoats. Instead, I was a person who kept petticoats stuffed in her Hungarian Narwhal dresser.

13. Five pounds of masking tape the size of a human head. My high school unknowingly funded this project; it grew as I carried this from class to class in my backpack until I developed lower back pain. Then, one weekend, I lugged it from Langley to my boyfriend’s place in North Vancouver. I think he was impressed?

Which brings me to the strangest thing I currently own:

Paper with my first boyfriend’s blood on it.

I also have a bunch more blood-free illustrations by him. I save most drawings and handwritten letters I receive as they take up very little space. They all fit in a box measuring 10 x 13 x 2.5 inches.

Yup. That’s my excuse for dragging around my first boyfriend’s DNA for the past twenty years!

Without further ado, here’s what you freaky fucks sent me:

1. Anonymous: A counterfeit Rodin with a skin condition that was stolen from a now-defunct popular local watering hole.

2. Davy: “Japanese Banjo Kazooie cartridge–which means I can’t play it because it’s incompatible with North American systems.”

3. Nic: “Is a homemade cat tent strange enough for you?”

Nope. Every cat deserves a tent.

4. Zoée: “Over 20 years ago, my sister came across a pile of teeth on a sidewalk and took them. Me being me, I absolutely wanted one and I’ve carried this tooth with me across USA and Canada.”

So, if anybody has teeth they no longer want, send them to Zoée, not me.

5. Ben: An eleven-inch ruler that was a gift from a retiring co-worker.

6. Anonymous: A dildo signed by the porn star it was modeled after.

“A friend went to that porn expo in Vegas and brought it back for me.”

My response: “You’re friends with a porn expo attendee!”

7. Zack: Seductive painting of a senior citizen.

It looks like the sort of painting one would find in the background of a South Park episode.

8. Jessie: “Strangest thing I own, not to be confused with the silver goblets we used to use when we used to gather to watch Game of Thrones. We still own those. This one was given to me by two dear coworkers. It’s the physical representation of a metaphor we used to use when talking about the job we worked at together. The cup of opportunity… at first glance seems full of hope and promise…”

“…but upon further inspection is full of garbage.”

“The inside was carefully curated by my coworkers, items include saw dust, garbage, and a dead fly. All set in resin. They presented it to me on a platter after I finally quit the job and quoted some line from Indiana Jones.”

9. P-O: “I bent this spoon 11 years ago.”

I remember this spoon. P-O is an ex: this spoon belonged in our cutlery drawer for the few years we lived together. I remember holding it up while making my wtf face, prompting him to demonstrate how its groove locked over the edge of a bowl, solving the issue of losing a spoon in hot soup.

I asked how his girlfriend felt about it. “She wanted to throw it out but I said no. My son now uses it to eat his yogurt.”

10. Maggie: A clothes shaver. “I love it, it’s from 1987 and it still works great!”

Apparently, I’m the only other person she knows who also owns a clothes shaver. But, unlike her, mine doesn’t predate me.

11. Gator: She made this to represent community, imagination, unity, change, love, inspiration and support.

To me, it gives off Wes Craven vibes. I’d hang it on my wall.

12. Danica: Many of my strange objects of yore were hand-me-downs from Danica (#2, 3, 4, 6, 10, and the body of #8). I knew that by asking her to contribute, I was basically handing her the victory.

“Oh my god, dude. HOW DO I CHOOSE?” She proceeds to send me four photos. “You may have to do the choosing. That’s just shit in my line of view.”

I chose the framed assholes.

If these are up your (dark) alley, they’re available through her website along with surprisingly sensible water colour paintings.

13. Liz: “I have trouble calculating what is strange. I have a lot of things that some may find strange, but I don’t find them to be so. This one defies categorization outside of perhaps ‘art’, though. It’s two porcelain heads (with teeth!) affixed into an old singer sewing machine drawer with sterling wire halos. Yes, I made it. Perhaps it’s strange? Alas, not funny, just artsy-moody or whatever”

14. Anis: The first time I visited Anis’ place, it took me back to the days of living with Danica: full of random décor, including a fake severed leg and a pink rotary telephone in the shape of a heart. So, I emailed Anis requesting his contribution.

“I’ve got a lot of stuff. I’m not a hoarder, but I like a lot of different stuff, so it adds up. After a lot of hesitation, here is my chosen submission for your gallery:”

“It’s an upside down pink-purple papier-mâché volcano.

I built it for a show we did with my band, where I brought it up on a rolling table during our song about the Snaefflesjoküll (volcanic entry point of Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth).

Inside of it, there was a smoke machine’s output tube and an orange light projector. Its mouth has a concealed cut-off Gatorade bottle cap, to which I would screw in the bottle with the vinegar eruption recipe inside. A recipe that I tested before the show, but that decided to fail when I needed it the most. Very little lava.

In order not to disappoint the crowd and myself, I inserted my hand in the mountain and squeezed the plastic bottle repeatedly in order to squirt out the white foam.

I was too focused on the music to notice, but the crowd didn’t miss any chance afterwards to tell me about the obvious phallic subtext they sensed watching me squirting white foam with my hand out of a waist-level organic-looking pink cone.

Sad.
Or is it?”

15. Jmeg: “The strangest things are probably textiles relevant to hobbies-boxes of wool shreds, bits of velvet. These, of course, supply a collection of Star Wars character portraits on velvet and hooked rugs depicting spaceship screen read outs that currently reside in my attic. Those in themselves may be the strangest – or at least the tackiest thing(s) I own.

That said, we do have a catchkey that I got from my mom. It was in my bathroom growing up. It’s these 2 cast aluminum wall hangings. Of course you will approve because like you, we decorate our bathroom with bathroom stuff. The strangest thing about them is the paint job. It’s really well done for such ugly and ridiculous decorations.”

16. Tammy: 3D art of a (non-seductive) senior citizen that she created.

17. András: “Piezoelectric thingy. It’s good for giving a tangible shock to your nips.”

I asked him about the fish ornament on the side.

“I am glad you noticed my Sally the Salmon ornament creeping in the corner.”

18. “Frank”: “Perez was found at a yard sale.”

19. Konstantin: “I have a book on the history of torture which I found one day and found extremely fascinating… I also keep a box of old wires and technology that I’m convinced will come in handy one day. But it never will.”

Hopefully this book won’t come in handy one day.

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The winners are…

1. Danica. Definitely Danica.
2. Jessie and The Cup of Opportunity.
3. The person who owns a signed copy of James Deen’s dick.

The prizes will be revealed after the winners have received them!

If this contest motivates the losers to introduce more freakiness in their lives, I’ll consider this a job well done!