Okay, I just don't understand Wisconsinites' penchant for decorating with their stuffed and mounted kills. How can one relax and watch TV while the glassy eyes of the dead gaze at you? How can they spend an evening scouring the Internet for good killing grounds and online ammo shops when their recent victims hover overhead? At first, I thought it was simply amusing that so many north woods homeowners (especially in Wisconsin) display their kill trophies.
Now I'm just disgusted. Dead animals do not make good home decor, people.
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This is a beautiful kitchen - very nice! But, what's on that wall to the upper left in the photo? OMG, do they have a giant ant problem?? No. They don't have a giant ant problem. They have a strange affinity for fake dragonflies.
Browsing home listings for Wisconsin this morning and found more dead animals as decor. This half-a-bear watches the family eat. Sounds like a recipe for indigestion, if you ask me. (What do they do with the other half of the bear? Do I even want to know?) Deer heads take priority over the tv in this home. The buck on the right seems to be caught mid-sentence. "Say, what's that fella in bright orange pointing at us?" Here's a duck alongside the gun that killed it. His little head is tucked down in shame. "They got me, all right." A turkey watches in judgement while you pour giblet gravy over your mashed potatoes. He hopes your arteries clog. It's not truly a cabin without some antlers and a bear skin. A pheasant posed majestically, as he must have been just before the buckshot tore through his body. Wtf are those boulders doing on the coffee table? Or are they gourds? Either way, meh. Okay this isn't a dead animal but creeps me out way more. Imagine waking up (or trying to go to sleep) with a doll watching over you with her lifeless black eyes. She looks like she's ready to pounce. Shudder. I'm browsing houses for sale in the Twin Cities (Minnesota) suburbs and sometimes check out homes just over the border in Wisconsin because the potential commute would be about the same as a home north of the metro.
Honest to God, more than 50% of the Wisconsin listings have dead animals displayed somewhere in the home. Wisconsinites sure like killin' things. The homeowner below seems to have eradicated the entire male side of a deer family. Dad, uncles, brothers. Got 'em all! And since there's no TV over the mantle, everyone apparently sits in the living room staring down these dead beasts. If I had a dollar for every time I saw a home with a print of Raphael's Cherubs from the Sistine Madonna in the bathroom or master bedroom this week, I'd have 5 dollars. I'm not kidding. Why would anyone want a couple of toddler angels watching them do their business in the bathroom? Well, I guess technically they are averting their eyes.
These cherubs belong in Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden, Germany, not your bathroom or bedroom, in rural Wisconsin, people. If this were real landscaping, I'd seriously question the overall design and arbitrary placement of these plants. It looks like it's in the dirt driveway. Where are you going to park your car now?
But, it's not real. I'm thinking the realtor recently purchased Photoshop and decided to show off his/her newfound graphic "skills." What a hot mess. Just because you know how to copy/paste a fern doesn't mean you SHOULD copy and paste a fern. FIVE TIMES. The mulch is huge - not in proportion with the copy/pasted plants. The lilies have been stretched and flattened. Oh, hey, let's stick in a bird bath. And are we supposed to believe the crudely drawn black line is garden edging? You couldn't copy/paste in some paving stones or something? Someone needs to revoke this realtor's Photoshop privileges. My mom and I were texting about the weather the other day and I asked her if they'd had rain recently. She said no and mentioned tornado warnings in a nearby town. (They live in Kansas.) Then she texted, "I HATE THIS TIME OF YEAR!!!"
I had to chuckle because she says that at least once a season:
During which season is she actually happy? Why doesn't she move out of that state, if it's so bad, every year, every season? Such passionate feelings about a situation surely require actions to resolve them, no? I use these conversations with my mom as lessons for myself to reflect on my own feelings, especially negative ones. Do I hate every season in Minnesota? Thankfully, no. I honestly dislike parts of Winter - the really cold days, the dangerously icy or snowy days that make commuting difficult. The length of the season. But the rest of the year, I love it here. If I didn't, if I had a reason to hate each season, I would like to think I'd take action, seek an alternative. Move instead of constantly complaining. Taking action is what I did when I hated my last job. I applied for over 140 jobs to get the hell out of that toxic situation. I didn't just stay and complain about it. I got out. When I was a reluctant participant in a writing partnership I'd never wanted, I bowed out when I realized the relationship was sucking the joy out of my life. I do complain a lot, as humans tend to do. But I try to be conscious about my choices and my happiness levels. I try to recognize if I'm just having a bad day or if I'm immersed in a situation I need to escape. I'm also working on finding ways to be more positive. Even if it's trying to find a tiny bit of good or amusement in a negative situation. For example, when a car was speeding past everyone on the highway, zipping from lane to lane, I thought to myself, "Well, at least he's using his turn signal when he swerves abruptly into the next lane. How courteous!" And sometimes, if it's an inescapable negative situation (waiting in line at the DMV, for example), the best we can do is find ways to amuse ourselves to bear through it. uLast night my husband and I visited a local Italian restaurant for my birthday dinner. We'd just given our order to the server when a woman with an "I'd like to speak to the manager" haircut was seated with her daughter at a nearby table. She promptly told the hostess to get her server, immediately.
The server rushed over and the woman (who I'll call Leona) said, "We need to get somewhere right after this, so we don't have a lot of time. I need you to take our order and get it to us as soon as possible. Do you think you can do that?" Leona's tone, while not outright rude, was condescending and superior. Of course, the server said she could, took the order and Leona and her daughter were served quickly in a flurry of waitstaff attending to them. Here are some thoughts for Leona:
I enjoy going out to eat but I'll admit, the part where another human being waits on me makes me feel a little awkward. Therefore, I am very respectful and tip well. There are so many people who feel they were meant to be served; they embrace it with an inflated sense of entitlement and superiority. Those people are ugly. Look, I'm an animal lover. Dogs, cats - I've had both.
But when it comes time to sell my house, I'm not going to pose my dog alluringly on my leopard-print bedspread in the real estate photos. That's just exploiting the poor animal. Today's gem is brought to you by Valerie, one of my many (two) readers who is searching for her own dream home. The realtor described this home as "slightly blemished." You be the judge. Let's start with the living room. One can only assume the sofas have seen better days and the sheets covering them were the best available option. Love that the power strip is located in the MIDDLE of the room. Don't trip when touring the home! Notice Santa in the window sill to the left? It's APRIL, people! I think this is one of those dancing Santas, so perhaps the thought is he'd entertain guests who are sitting gingerly on the edges of those sofas waiting for the host to bring them a refreshing glass of Kool-Aid. We'll move into the kitchen where the breakfast (and dinner, and previous breakfast and dinner) dishes are patiently waiting to be washed. The frying pan full of cooking oil is a nice touch. Nothing screams "house fire" like a brown coating of grease on the side of the refrigerator beside the stove. A full-sized table lamp serves as ambient lighting for those romantic meals. Let's check out a bedroom or two. (I think this homeowner collects lamps.) I personally think leaving the vacuum out for a real estate photo speaks volumes for the cleanliness of the property, don't you agree? However, the ashtray in the middle of the bed suggests otherwise. I wonder if these people own a fire extinguisher? Below is another bedroom, this one looks spacious enough, with all the stuffed animals cowering in the corner. I wondered why they just didn't shove everything into the closet but I suspect the stuffed toys are holding the door closed to prevent whatever's inside from exploding into the room. At first Valerie and I thought this was a sauna and the backpack was highly suspect. On closer inspection, I see a bar for hanging clothes. So this is likely a cedar closet. The backpack is probably simply filled with linens or cocaine. This home had three bathrooms. The other two were full of the usual clutter of toiletries and used towels but this one struck my fancy as it was the neatest. Yet, they left an empty toilet paper roll on display. Plus, I don't know what's going on with that strip of plastic at the bottom of the window shade. Intriguing. Finally, no set of real estate photos is complete without showing the basement.
This one is finished and can serve as a guest room for friends, family or kidnap victims. The microwave bedside table is a nice touch. No one wants to go all the way upstairs to the kitchen to heat up their midnight snack of Hot Pockets. |
About Sally FarleyI'm a typical, hardworking Midwesterner, enduring (and sometimes participating in) the passive-aggressive complexities of life in Minnesota. ArchivesLinksAsk a Manager
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