VISITING your mum? Suddenly noticed her house is filled with mad stuff you’d never find anywhere else? Look out for these key pieces:
A commissioned dog portrait
Remember that miserable dog you had as a child? Your mum certainly does, and that’s why there’s an oil painting of him in the kitchen that your parents actually paid for. It’s bigger than any photograph of you or your siblings so you know where you stand, and it’s also been printed on coasters.
A creepy collection of porcelain models
They’re ‘collectibles’, apparently – though you’re unaware of a thriving market for sad-eyed rabbits doing random shite like hula-hooping and using an abacus. She mistakes the look of distrustful unease you give them as admiration and promises you’ll inherit them.
An unlimited number of slogan signs
Whether it’s ‘Live, Laugh, Love’, ‘This kitchen is for dancing’ or a whimsical admission of drinking gin alone from noon onwards, mums love to express themselves with signs bought from a garden centre. But the fact there are so many, on every surface, suggests someone trying to block out dark, murderous thoughts.
Bizarre kitchen items
Plastic, unusually shaped, impossible to fathom the function of? ‘That’s my meat-chopper,’ your mum will reply, or ‘my tube-squeezers’ or ‘those scissors are also a garlic-crusher, nutcracker and bottle opener’. If you hang around you’ll see tubes squeezed by hand instead because it’s easier.
Weird foreign crap
Your mum grants a blanket exception to all rules of good taste for items bought on holiday, which is why your old school picture is in a garish wooden frame with the words ‘My heart belongs to Cyprus’. It makes no sense but she thinks fridge magnets are ‘common’ so this is the only way she can commemorate the five-day trip.
The latest squirrel-proof bird feeder
Your mum’s passionate love of birds seems to have arrived simultaneously with a murderous hatred of squirrels, which is why she’s always getting the latest design of discriminatory bird feeder. Which those f**king squirrels have found a way into anyway, as she never fails to tell you.
