Give Your Home
That Fresh, Mint-y Taste
She’s slowly doing the house over in a Southwestern motif, which involves a lot of silhouettes of "Kokopelli." Kokopelli, the best that I can tell, is a guy with big hair playing some kind of flute; I’m not positive but I think he may be a member of Jethro Tull.
Unfortunately, my lack of ability in this area has left me wondering how I, too, could contribute to the ambience of our home. That is, until I stumbled upon a Franklin Mint catalogue in the lunchroom of my office. What caught my eye was the cover, which featured a sculpture of Marilyn Monroe that looked exactly like the actual Marilyn Monroe, had she been encased entirely in porcelain.
And to think, up until that point I was under the impression that the Franklin Mint sold exclusively Civil War chess sets. I thought if you needed a little pewter Jeb Stuart, the Franklin Mint was the way to go.
But as it turns out, the catalogue features a lot of other items that could add that certain flair to your family room, from what looks like a snow globe with a little Bob Hope inside it to a sculpture of John Wayne "as we love to remember him" — which is, apparently, extremely shiny.
The item that really won me over, though, was "The Angler’s Dream Watch," which was supposedly designed by actor Robert Wagner and features a fish on it. The $195 watch is billed as being "as handsome and durable as Robert Wagner himself," and also water resistant, although whether it’s more or less water resistant than Robert Wagner himself is not revealed.
(Incidentally, I can’t help but wonder: Why Robert Wagner? Were Robert Conrad and/or Lyle Waggoner unavailable?)
The best part of the Franklin Mint catalogue is that no actual full prices are listed. Instead, each entry denotes the price in monthly installments: "Five monthly installments of $39 each," etc. This tells me the Franklin Mint has a very savvy marketing department, which is cleverly targeting a clientele that doesn’t know how to add.
Regardless, for my own house I especially like the company’s movie tie-in merchandise — it’s decidedly classier than my framed "Naked Gun" poster, which my wife can’t seem to find a place for in our living room. For instance, for five monthly installments of $27 each, I can get "Rose, The Official TITANIC Vinyl Portrait Doll" to place on my mantelpiece. It even comes with several different outfits, although if anyone catches me changing little dresses on a vinyl naked Kate Winslet, please have me arrested immediately.
Or for five monthly installments of $49 each I can get "The Official Klingon d’k tahg Crystal Edition," which is "the awesome weapon of the Klingon warrior" from "Star Trek." This would be used, presumably, to stab people who call you a hopeless geek.
I’m writing all these things down to present to my wife during our next interior decorating discussion. The capper will be when I explain to her that while she may be gone, Princess Diana will never be forgotten as long as we have (for five monthly installments of $39 each) a sculpture of her in a form-fitting evening gown smiling out at us from the shelf next to the toaster.
I know what you’re thinking: This guy has some pretty classy taste. Hopefully my wife will agree; if not, I may finally have to give up on interior decorating and take up chess.
Does anyone know if a Beauregard can capture a Burnside?