A few weeks back I visited a buddy of mine who is 1st generation American, but both his parents are Thai and South Vietnamese immigrants. His mom is amazing cook and makes every meal like it was a holiday. So of course, I jumped at the chance to go over there for dinner with them. I hadnt been inside his parents house in years and I had forgotten one key thing. In their living room, they have these two ceramic elephant statues, but the tusks are made with ivory from actual poached elephants. Its a pretty bizarre thing to behold (and very illegal). I had asked my buddy about it, and he mentioned that they have fake tusks they cant swap them in with, but they leave the real ones in for "trusted company." Focus: What kind of weird shit do your friends or family have in their homes?
My cousin and her husband have a stuffed red tail hawk that was probably taxidermied back in the 60s. It is so old that, every once in a while a feather falls out. Her husband is 1/32nd native American, and takes this as a "sign". I've been told these feathers are "strong magic".
My dad had (still has?) a swordfish that he caught and had stuffed. It hung in a prominent location for years. I've seen swordfish all the time at public places, but never in someone's house before. I always thought it was cool. I felt really bad when I broke the sword.
Focus: This isn't my story, but it fits: When my ex-wife was growing up, her best friend looooved with Michael Jackson. One summer, her friend's family went away on vacation, and they asked my ex-wife and her mom to feed their dogs while they were gone. (It's worth noting that my ex had never been to this girl's house before.) When they got to the house, there was a fucking shrine to Michael Jackson in the living room. The center piece was a 3-foot tall marionette version of Wacko Jacko in a glass case, complete with it's own lighting system. She said that it looked creepy as fuck, and that neither she nor her mom wanted to be in the same room with it. But they were going to have to keep coming to the house every day for a week or so, so they put a sheet over the glass case, and took it off on the last day. My ex-wife never mentioned or asked her friend about the shrine/puppet.
I have a nuclear fallout shelter sign in my garage. My father brought it home from the school he was working at in about 1962. I have had it ever since.
Whwn I was in school, I kept my Triumph 650 motorcycle in the front room. Well, the only room - it was a single or bachelor deal w/ one room, a bathroom and a small closet. Landlord always came in person on the first to collect the rent. He couldn't miss seeing the bike, but never said a word. Bike's gone, but the gas tank now decorates our family room/library.
A mammoth ivory and walrus bone knife made as a centerpiece in Kotzebue, AK in 2013 I bought for $300, which I pawned later for money, and also because apparently mostly-Whiteys ain't supposed to own that stuff. A bread-bowl from my Cherokee great-great grandmother. And finally, a broken banjo owned by my grandpa.
This reminds me: As a mechanic, I've got all kinds of car parts in my house. There's a fuel filter and spark plugs on my desk right now. I've rebuilt carburetors, power steering pumps, steering columns, A/C compressors, etc. on my kitchen counter on numerous occasions.
I'd love to get some more mammoth ivory or maybe other fossil ivory; guilt-free of the whole orphaning Asian, African bush and African forest elephants.
If this counts, when I was younger we had a cat with three buttholes that decided to live in the basement and had this yowl like a sad ghost that made all my friends think my house was haunted. Somehow telling them it was just my cat with three buttholes didn't seem to make them feel more comfortable.
I have a bunch of animal skulls and bones around the house. Every few months or so I'll find one on the ranch, coons, opossums, squirrels, fox, coyote, deer heads and antlers. Some I've killed long ago and find their skull later, others went of natural causes and I happen upon it. If I find one that looks cool I'll sanitize it and put it somewhere or hang it up.
In the early 70s, a year or three before I was born, my dad was rebuilding a motorcycle engine, and put the disassembled parts in the dishwasher to clean. When he told my brother and a friend (as adults) about this, friend turned to my brother and said "Don't ever make fun of me for being a redneck again." Focus: Does a guy having three cats count?
Why is having a guitar weird? Toytoy will want to kick me in the balls for this, but there sits my Epiphone Les Paul, still don't know how to play it. Hey, it still LOOKS great as an accent. I promise I will learn when my mid-life crisis finally kicks in.
My friend's dad prominently displayed a picture of himself and a Bill Clinton impersonator. WTF? I kept two dirt bikes in the house. One in a spare bedroom, one in the kitchen. My mom, for some reason, put a fake, rubber pile of dog shit in my Christmas stocking one year. Left it on the kitchen floor for years.