My Mother, the CSI
I was recently offered a human hand.
Yeah. There’s NO OTHER WAY to say that. Well, I guess there is. Someone offered me a human hand because they know I am an artist. I cannot, for the life of me, tell if this is real or not. It’s skeletal, and held together with little screws. The person offering it is also an artist, and picked up the hand at a flea market in the middle of a book fair. She had since become a vegetarian.
Friend: I just can’t eat meat anymore. I keep staring at this thing, and it’s staring back.
Me: Well, in fairness, it would be less creepy if you didn’t paint eyes all over it.
Friend: Yeah. The eyes give it a perky little face, and now all I can think of is how I have a perky little face, and someone could eat me.
Me: I am really not following your logic. Also, and I mean this as kindly as possible for one artist to another, two eyes equals a perky little face, seven eyes, scattered around on skeletal human digits in varying colors and sizes is not perky. It’s the stuff of nightmares.
Friend: *sighs*
Me: On second thought, I do want it. Think of the children I could torture! Shit, I would buy an ice cream truck just so I could travel around the midwest scaring the crap out of children!
Friend: You’re always the one who takes it too far, you know that?
I should take it to my mother, who, despite the creepy paint, could tell if it was real or not. I know it does have some plaster on it, but then there’s something else there too. Like the plaster is only there to fill in divots or something. Ala nail holes in an apartment.
Why my mother? Because, and this is WAY before CSI, my mother has read every book on human remains and decomposition that has ever existed. No, really.
In the meantime, I have to paint over the eyes. They’re just sitting there, staring a hole through my soul, judging me for being a meat eater…
See, this is what makes your blog a fascinating read–you go right from “Gobble-gobble” the day before to a possible severed hand. I’ll bet if you had the “hand” sticking out of the turkey one year you’d never get asked to make the turkey again! Hmmn, maybe you could rent it out for that purpose!
Great post. I’ll resist the temptation to ask people to “give you a hand”
I love your tags on this post.
There is a way to find out if it is real right now. Gently touch it with your tongue. If it feels like a sponge absorbing liquid, then it’s real. If not, it’s a fake. I’ll resist the temptation about biting ones nails too. But not for long.
I was hoping you wouldn’t say why your mother would know – I like to think there are random PI mothers roaming the world.
You’ve crushed my dreams. (And ruined Kwanzaa.)
OH NOT KWANZAA! Dang, I AM an asshole!
I didn’t say that. But Jerry, the Kwanzaa god, she said it. So … watch out.
Shit. I am always pissing him off.