Page 41 - Voices November 2016

and I got a little angry. I took it back from her looking at the fish that’s evident.” She told me
and I flicked it back in her face, and yelled, “Why
you sellin’ it?” She shrugged and said “gimme
a quarter.” No need to haggle. Sold! I took it,
framed it, and hung it on the wall in front of
my toilet.
Now, herein lies the problem. My husband
said that my bathroom was creepy and weird
and that he didn’t feel comfortable in
there. I said, “That’s my point! I don’t
want you to be comfortable in there!
Get in, get out! And besides
I don’t want any guests to be
relaxed enough to rifle around
my medicine cabinet!”
Then I had to spend the
next hour trying to convince
him that NO, I was not
addicted to prescription pain
medication and YES, I probably
did need intense therapy. Which
leads me to my final item, Bobby “His name is Bobby”
the wonder fish.
Bobby was an orange papier-
mâché fish with a full set of hillbilly teeth and
mismatched eyes. When I saw him on the shelf
at Pat’s thrift store, our eyes locked! At least the
one that was facing me. I knew he had to be mine
and I asked Pat how much. She said, “Well, he
was made by a genuine artist, I’m gonna need
10 bucks.” I said, “10 bucks for this thing, are
you kidding me? Its eyes don’t match. They’re
two different sizes and colors. They’re not even
pointing in the same direction!”
And then I got the full story. The genuine
artist is actually a homeless guy that lives in
the alley behind her shop and when he’s low
on cash he’ll make something to sell. She told
me sometimes he likes to wear up to three
sets of contact lenses at the same time. “Yeah,
“The world is shaped by two things — stories
told and the memories they leave behind.”
Vera Nazarian, Dreams of the Compass Rose
VOLUME 3 ISSUE 5 NOVEMBER, 2016
“his name is Bobby.” I asked, “The artist or the
fish?” She told me, “Oh, the artist of course, but
that’s a good name for the fish too.” It was, but
I told her I’d have to think about it. Ten bucks
is a lot of money. As I turned to walk away she
says, “And I’m pretty sure those are real human
teeth.” I go, “Jeez Pat! Why didn’t you lead with
that? Of course I want it! Sold!” I wrapped
it up, brought it home, and put it
on the mantle in the middle of my
living room.
So here we were at a standstill.
My husband thought my
house was creepy and weird
and I clearly did not. So I
made one final ditch effort
to save my stuff and I recited
a quote that’s been attributed
to Dr. Seuss. (Because when
you’re me, you have to have
random quotes handy to justify
your behavior.) I said to him, “You
know what? We’re all little weird, and
life’s a little weird, and when you find someone
whose weirdness is compatible with your own,
you join up with them in mutual weirdness, and
you call it love.”
And to my surprise. . .that didn’t work. I
thought it was kind of charming but he wasn’t
having it. The stuff in the bathroom had to go.
It got relegated to the basement, facing the wall
of course, because no one wanted to be caught
off guard. But Bobby, with his gap-tooth grin
and wall-eyed stare, still reigns supreme on my
mantle in the center of the living room.
Heather shared that she went to work for Banfield
Pet Hospitals so that she could join Banfield Barkers
Toastmasters. Which she did in 2013.
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