Mugly

Since the Dawn of NeighborGoodies, lo those many moons ago (about 15 months' worth of moons, to be specific...) I have been sneaking around my Luxurious Hollywood Hills apartment building, secretly snapping photos of the miscellany that has been dumped in the laundry room. As I've said before, I didn't want anyone in the building to know about this little project, partly because I don't want to compromise the "integrity" of the NeighborGoodies by having thwarters plant items... but mainly because I don't want any of the would-be murderers in the building to become actual murderers after reading my stunningly accurate descriptions of them and their objects.

And so, for over a year, the Secret was, well... a secret.

Then last week, a friend from the building found me on Facebook. He's lived here for years, and I've known him since I moved to LA almost 10 years ago. We worked together on my first job out here, and then lost touch until he found me (oddly enough) in the laundry room soon after he had moved into the building, completely by coincidence.

Because I often use Facebook to alert people when there's a particularly interesting post, I knew the proverbial jig was up.

I fired off an email that said, "Can you keep a secret?" And just like that, the cat was out of the bag.

He called later to tell me that A: He enjoyed the blog and B: that there were a bunch of mugs and a light bulb on the table. Like this one, which sadly is only the second ugliest of the bunch:

This mug, which is designed to look as though it was pieced together using tiny green brickettes and other assorted masonry to create the flower, was actually stolen from Mon Sushi. I know that because it is written in itty-bitty letters near the bottom of the mug:

Weirdly, a place called Mon Sushi with a different phone number has recently gone out of business a few miles from here. However, a place called with that phone number exists in West Hollywood under the name of "Sushi Mon." What a mystery! Because of such confusion, I'll go ahead and assume this is all an elaborate trap to lure unsuspecting tea-sippers to their doom.

Also on the Big, Blue Table is this mug from the cruelly-named Performing Arts Physical Therapy studio...

...for anyone who took the phrase "break a leg" little too literally before hitting the stage.

And, of course, we have these three matching mugs...


...which look as though they were an artists' rendition of television's white noise, which were then filled up with hideousness...

..in the form of rat droppings. But despite all this ugliness...

...the worst mug of all has to be this international piece of waste:

Featuring, among other things, haphazardly drawn cherries, glasses of wine, what look to be either strawberries or hearts, an Eiffel Tower and some birds all against a cloudy blue sky background, this thing screams of being a last-minute, thoughtless gift for someone purchased at the Airport.

I'm not entirely sure why the light bulb is stuffed inside of it...


...but it is, and it is almost guaranteed to set your apartment ablaze. That is, if you don't poison yourself by drinking out of one of the doody-infested mugs first.

Honorable Mention goes to the Lion King Sippy Cup...

...and to the Downstairs Neighbor Guy, who has become The first official in-building ally of NeighborGoodies. Thanks for alerting me to these items, and welcome to the team! Now shhhh!