Passed Crap

Return of The Creosote Sweeping Log!

...and yet ANOTHER log, because Mojo is THAT kind of person!

The original picture of the Shick Intuition Razor.

Mojo's Back!

Yes, after a much-too-long hiatus, due to an unfortunate freak accident and resultant long-term injury, stress and even more laziness than usual, Mojo has returned to bother the good people of eBay! I will not go into my usual complaints about said injury--my nearly daily whinings are all archived on my blog if you want to feel better about your own life--but the past four months are forever suffused in the glow of prescription painkillers and twice-daily dressings performed by Mojo's patient and long-suffering Favorite Husband. And thanks in part to his skillful nursing (as well as Mojo's determination to continue being obnoxious in this world), Mojo is back and better than ever, so long as you consider a totally-cool scar to somehow make her "better".

Mom's Stuffed Cats!

Okay, so Mojo is going to try to make this brief since it'll be the last Craptacular auction until she gets back from vacation. So if this is somewhat slap-dash, it's because Mojo doesn't really care. Mentally she is already swinging in a hammock somewhere. Of course there are those who argue that mentally she is always somewhere else anyway, somewhere that doesn't require intellect beyond tying one's shoes (and even then it's the cheater's way that Mojo learned, by making two loops and tying them together instead of making the one loop and wrapping things around somehow. Mojo never learned how to do it THAT way).

More of Mom's Plaques Foisted Upon Us!

No, Mojo's Favorite Mother did not paint these. Either they were purchased or just given to her as gifts. And after keeping them for however many years she has kept them, she now feels the need to part with them. Why now? Sigh. I don't know. Mothers can be inscrutable that way. I discovered a long time ago you are far better off just nodding and smiling at them and occasionally grunting "uh-huh" if there is too much blank space. But you DO have to pay attention somewhat, or before you know it you have volunteered yourself for some charity service near and dear to Mom's heart. And you just KNOW when your mother says "Really, it's just this tiny little bit--you'll be in and out of there within an hour" you have just destroyed an entire day, and possibly the day before, helping to set up and heaven only knows what else. And while you're doing that of course there will be some sort of crisis and everyone will be throwing their hands in the air and while Mojo is going along with the crowd saying, "Man, that's too bad" you will hear that chirpy motherly voice you know so well saying "Wait a minute! MOJO has a pickup truck! We can have MOJO drive over and pick the stuff up and deliver it here! You'll do that, won't you, honey?" and everyone starts smiling and thanking you while you just stand there wondering what happened. Because one moment you have a feather duster in your hands and the next thing you know you are lugging cinderblocks with some fellow you don't even know, who has so obviously gone to the Tow Truck Driver's School of Weirdness and who seems utterly determined to scratch your poor little truck's paint job. But I digress.

Mojo's Favorite Mother's Various Stabs at Artistry

Mojo's mom is a quilter, we all know, and quilters, if you don't have the good fortune of knowing one, are a Breed Apart, an eccentric and fun group of (mostly) ladies who can kill their own snakes, as the vernacular puts it, although to be perfectly honest Mojo likes snakes and does not appreciate those who blindly kill them just because they happen to be snakes. Spiders, too. Both spiders and snakes play important respective roles in the ecosystem and for the most part just want to be left alone and try to run away from humans as soon as they can. Mojo's Favorite Mother of course is responsible for passing on this Boundless Love for All of God's Creatures--so long as Mojo's blood is not spilled, of course--and I always thought that the following anecdote was indicative of the sort of open-minded and fair person Mom was and is. For according to HER, Mojo's Favorite Mother was actually afraid of spiders and snakes, but she did not wish to pass this illogical bias on to her children. So when we were kids, Mom used to encourage us to handle daddy longlegs--who, granted, Mojo now knows are not actual spiders but a type of arachnid called a Harvestman--and would sometimes let them crawl on her to actively show us they were harmless. Snakes were another matter, for as try as she might she never got over her fear of them, but when she encountered one in the garden she would just calmly walk to the house and ask one of us to temporarily remove the fellow from her presence. And once when I was young and stupid I accidentally stepped on a very large rat snake that was sunning itself and got very badly bitten. My mother was afraid, since I was in hysterics, that I would grow to be afraid of snakes, so all the way to the doctor's office (for a tetanus shot) I was lectured on how it was my thoughtless actions that caused the poor snake to have to defend itself. So by the time I got to the doctor's my snivelling was substantially reduced and indeed later that summer my dad specifically took me out snake-hunting (just catching them, not hurting them) just to make sure there were no ill effects from my traumatic encounter. I did not realize that was what he was doing until in retrospect, but we all know some of us are rather slow on the uptake.

Mojo's Favorite Mother's Vintage Sports Illustrated Magazine

Okay. No recounting of all of the childhood traumas Mojo is now re-experiencing will be complete without her Favorite Mother recounting the dating scene she enjoyed in college. Mom was a professor's brat at Penn State (although I will probably catch some major grief calling her a "brat") and either as such or in spite of such had an active social life. Active by Mojo's standards, anyway. Mojo, of course by contrast is something of a misanthrope and would rather sit and stare at the wall all evening than attend a sorority dance, but it just goes to show. What it shows, I'm not quite sure, but there ya go. I guess it means not only did the apple fall far from the tree but someone picked up that poor apple that never hurt anyone and flung it, and then it was trampled by pigs and left to rot in the mud. Anyway, for whatever reason, Mojo's Favorite Mother is what Mojo would call "Socie", which is not meant to be the slur it sometimes is but just in the social sense. Whereas Mojo has to be dragged kicking and screaming to certain events and really enjoys being left alone until she happens to get lonely and then she wonders why no one ever calls or writes unless they want something. And of COURSE Mojo upped and married a social butterfly thereby assuring she will never enjoy being alone, never again, and has since learned to communicate with humans through a series of grunts and hand gestures.