All I want for Christmas is a decorative fly swatter

Jake and I are still processing all the crazy collectibles we got from Jake’s grandmother this Christmas.

Jake’s grandmother is extremely generous, so every Christmas each of her seven grandchildren and their respective spouses (one of which would be me) receives a large shopping bag overflowing with various bric-a-brac and knick-knackery. Where does Grandmom W. procure these treasures? From her basement. She and her late husband — Jake’s grandfather — must have spent a lifetime faithfully hitting rummage sales up and down the eastern seaboard because she now has a collection of stuff that rivals what you’d find at a Goodwill warehouse.

The upstairs of her house is neat and tidy, but the basement….well, the basement looks slightly more orderly than this:

NOT an actual picture of Jake's grandmom's basement

This year, Grandmom W. was either feeling more generous than usual or she’d been bitten by a serious need to purge because instead of the usual shopping bag of knick-knacks, each of us received a large plastic bin — like the kind you’d use to store dog food for a Great Dane — full of one-of-a-kind Christmas wonder.

All kinds of glorious wonder!!!!  My box was so stuffed with tea towels, figurines, votives — I even got an upright jewelry box loaded with jewelry — the lid couldn’t fit. Among my Christmas treasures:

- Crotchet napkin cozies for each of the four seasons

- A large spoonrest depicting mushrooms

- A box of never-been-used doilies

- A long, rectangular strip of quilt with handy oven mitts attached at either end

- A statue nymphet

But the best gift of all went to Jake. It was a decorative fly swatter.

I stupidly did not take a picture of the decorative fly swatter, but the overall design looked something like what you see below, only Jake’s was covered in elegant brown crotchet and emblazoned with the catchy slogan “Buzz Off!”

Lets ponder this for a moment: A decorative fly swatter is one that serves no purpose except to hang proudly next to the refrigerator or maybe above the mantel.  Because you can’t actually use a decorative fly swatter since the fancy crotchet netting creates too much drag for it to be effective; fly swatting is about speed and stealth, after all.  Who would use a decorative fly swatter? Where does such a person live? Because I would like to meet this individual and discuss design aesthetics with him or her over prime rib and gravy at the Golden Corral.

So Jake did what any reasonable older brother would do: He unloaded the majority of our Christmas haul on Jake’s unsuspecting brother Mark. Mark and his wife Christina just had a baby two days prior so they didn’t really seem to notice that they received approximately three times as much “Grandmom loot” as everybody else. But I don’t think Mark minded. He was too distracted by his new “As Seen On TV” Gourmet Donut Maker and fancy cranberry sauce serving dish….or maybe it was his new baby?….to care.

The fly swatter, incidentally, didn’t make it into Mark’s bin. It ended up being co-opted by Jake’s nephew Micah who, at 18-months, is already showing an uncanny knack for cleanliness and order. The second Micah laid eyes on it, he all but forgot his new vacuum for toddlers and spent the rest of the weekend “cleaning” the chairs and carpets with his new crotchet tool.

It was a wonderful Christmas for all!

Tagged as: decorative fly swatter