Unwelcome Mat

Hello, dear readers! In an example of Life Imitating South Park, the internet has been down in the apartment for a few days. As it turns out, there is no special treatment for those of us who live in Luxury in the Hollywood Hills. But no matter! The NeighborGoodies have been piling up!

Let's start off with a MysteryGoodie! Care to take a guess what this fine specimen is?


The Blue Bulges and random circles are confusing to an untrained eye, and you might think this is an artist's rubbery replica of a UFO formation in the sky. . .but you are mistaken!! The answer is coming up in a moment...but first, let's talk about this:

It looks like a bottle of perfume, but seems to be filled with some sort of adobe-like coagulant...or perhaps some gold finger paint. I was going to open the bottle to smell it in an attempt to identify the contents, but then I noticed the glass is pretty thick around the edges, which leads me to believe that it contains Dangerous Materials. Possibly Ricin! And so, just to be safe, I left it on the NeighborGoodies table for some other neighbor to take. Luckily, someone left behind a Ceramic Trinket Box to safely carry this possibly radioactive material in:


This hideous morsel looks like it had never left the box. . .



. . .at least, not until I took it out to inspect it.

The Trinket Box feels like something someone would purchase at a yard sale, blown away by the fact that it only costs fifty cents, only to bring it home and wonder what the hell to do with it. They shoved it in a closet for about three years before depositing it on the Table of Giving. Luckily it has found a new life as a Dangerous Materials Storage Unit.

And speaking of Dangerous Materials, it's time to reveal the identity of today's MysteryGoodie:


The powder blue rubbery bumps. The Circles indicating something sinister underneath of the item. The required Filth Factor. It all can mean only one thing:


. . .the Third Neighborgoodie Bathmat this year. WHY! Why do my neighbors feel the need to share their disgusting, mold-and-athlete's-foot-covered, used bathmats on the NeighborGoodies table? This is a civilized Give and Take situation--not a depository for your feces and diseases!

You can almost see the bacteria that has built up after years of use:


Perhaps I'm mistaken. Perhaps the people of my building don't mind the idea of standing on a vile bathmat that one of their weird neighbors was naked upon a mere 24 hours ago... because not only do these things keep appearing--but they also keep disappearing.

Gross!