Tweet Season on my Mind or "Polly's ghost wants a cracker"

Cricket and I are prone to collecting.  I've mentioned before that I have a love for Royal Doulton character jugs and for Wally birds...  for the most part these are pieces I've picked up here and there and on-line, at one point I pretty much depleted my life-savings on Ebay.  (I assure you that it never was a lot of money)... it's been a fun hobby...

Cricket on the other hand has been collecting bird cages.

Now, for those of you that don't know, there is a substantial difference between the size of a bird cage and that of a character jug.  Most of the cages stand taller than I do and, while they are lovely, take up a fair amount of space.  

"Why is the china cabinet out on the porch?"

"Oh, I got a new bird cage."

"Umm, the fridge is on the front lawn..."

"Oh, I got a new bird cage."

"Where's the piano?"

"Oh, I got a new bird cage."

It works like this because we keep our addictions private... When a small box shows up, I check that it's mine and off I go to a private place where I can open it and check the item.  Once I've determined that it's what I ordered, I find a place for it in "the cabinets".  (The cabinets are two 9', floor to ceiling, shelving units that house my collection)...  I've been unemployed so the collection has been relatively stagnant these past few months...

Of course, when a bird cage shows up it is a different story altogether.  These things have stands and bases and are simply enormous...  Several have shown up and had to be lowered into the house by crane.

But a week or so ago a small box showed up... just the right size for a toby.  It wasn't addressed to me; I didn't open it.  (I hoped that it was a present for my birthday or something)

Two days later, as I'm pouring a cup of coffee, I see it; a cookie jar shaped like a simple bird cage with parakeets...  it's pretty...

"Oh, this is what was in that box that came..."

"Yeah, it's a cookie jar."

"I see that.  Does this mean I have to make some cookies?"

"If you want to," lifting the cookie jar.

twist

twist

twist

"It's also a music box."

...the music plays...

...and the music is, well... it's creepy.

I agree that a good many music boxes are creepy.  As they age it only gets worse; the music plays slower and slower.  I had one that my grandparents gave me that played the "Little Drummer Boy"; in reality it played the first phrase of "Little Drummer Boy".  You know:

"Come, they told me, Pah Rum Pah Pum Pum" over and over...and over.  

When you're a child you don't long for the resolution of the whole song, so, the one phrase doesn't drive you up the wall.  I would wind it up and let it play and play and play and play.  I enjoyed it so much that Mom decided that it should be put away with all the other "Christmas stuff"...  years later I found it buried in the linen cabinet...

Bean once bought my little sis a Christmas nutcracker that played (of all things) "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes".  Like I say, "There are some things that should never be made; there some things that are made that should never be bought; those things that should never have been made and never have been bought should never, ever, be given to your wife for Christmas."

Enough deeply nested tangent...

I expected the bird cage cookie jar to play any of various tunes that music boxes play such as "The Happy Wanderer", "Over the Rainbow", "Feed the Birds" even...  but not a funeral march...  the slow plinking music in a minor key is haunting and disturbing.  

If Uncle Fester from the Addams Family had an ice cream truck... 

If all the children in "Oliver Twist" went back to the work house at the end of the movie...

If Tim Burton were to recreate the Sound of Music in claymation...

...this is what the music would sound like...

...and so, there it sits on the counter; the haunted cookie jar.  It is old, old, old and remembers all the times it's been wound in the past and plays a stray note just when you've recovered from the last time it played.

My guess is that when the cookie jar is filled the weight of the cookies keeps the music from playing.  As each cookie is taken from the jar the weight decreases until it is light enough for the funeral march to start playing...  

The more I thought about this, the more it made sense to me.

I'm having a music box installed on the fridge door later in the week...  I should be ready for my swimsuit in no time...

-silly