For Blowing NOSES Only

Yesterday, NeighborGoodies celebrated its second year in existence. And, as if to commemorate this milestone, the following item was left on the Big, Blue Table:

This seemingly innocent-looking cardboard box features a wacky font announcing its contents:

"Ahh," I thought, "Create your own tissue box! A craft project! How exciting!"

I've got friends who knit things that will cover your tissues and toilet paper rolls, but I've never seen an actual "kit" to create my own. Curious, I reached inside to see what might be included in such a kit.

We will forever refer to that moment as "Mistake #1 of 2010."

. . .

Let me be clear about this: In the two years that I've been doing this little project--not to mention the nearly-eight years I've been Living in Luxury in these Hollywood Hills--a NeighborGoodie has never made me actually scream out loud before. Until this.

Don't get me wrong, there have most certainly been some frightening things left on this table, but none--no matter how dirty--have made me have such a visceral reaction as the item I pulled from this box.

Are you ready to see your "Create Your Own Tissue Box" kit?

Because this is what I found:


Every time I look at this photo, my mind just wants to shut down. It is terror in its absolute purest form.

I pulled this accursed object out of the box, screamed as I threw it down on to the Big Blue Table and quickly snapped a photo of it before running away. I briefly considered alerting the authorities, but then I realized I hadn't wiped my fingerprints from it.

I thought, "Maybe I'm overreacting. Maybe it's not as offensive as I think it is." A few hours later, I received a call from the NeighborGoodies Ally--the one guy in the building who knows about this project. He was calling to tell me to get downstairs immediately to snap some photos of this, and I'm quoting now, "baby gl*ry h*le."

Perhaps I wasn't overreacting after all. That incredibly apt description, along with the baby's alarmingly wet chin, is just about pushing the limits as to what I can and cannot handle in this Luxurious Life.

The price tag on the item describes it as such:

"Tissue Cover Oval Mouth." Gross.

To be fair, the other items depicted on the box aren't as offensive--but they're just as creepy.

For example: Tissue Cover Clown Nose and Nerd Glasses...


...Tissue Cover Terrifying Clown Mouth...


...and, America's Favorite, Tissue Cover Possessed Pig Nose:


Not surprisingly, I had a lot of trouble finding information on this should-be-outlawed item, other than a website that sells it along with other "hilarious" items to "tickle your funny bone." Items ranging from classic fake vomit all the way up to the pun-derful "Gin & Titonic" (an ice cube tray that forms frozen water into shapes of icebergs and ships.) But none of the items had the soul-crushing terror level of these hideous products.

I did find a similar product in Japan, but somehow, it wasn't nearly as alarming:

This is the first time in history a mustache has made something less rapey.

I need to go take a shower and poke my eyes out now. Good day.

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!