Vintage Imagery ATC's Triptych

For this ATC swap, I chose a Beauty and the Beast theme.

I named it...ahem..."Beastly Seduction".

No, wait...that's the title of the new book I'm reading. I'm sure that's a copyright violation. Let me try again.

How about "Beast Leaving Hairs on the Couch While Beauty Readies Her Fan to Discipline Him".

Oh, crud. NOW I’m thinking that’s the opening line of the aforementioned book. I guess I could check, but I don’t feel like climbing under my bed to retrieve said book from the hollowed out part of my mattress, hidden behind the third slat from the headboard.

Not to mention it was a little on the wordy side, anyway.

Let me try one more time.

"Beauty and the Beast: You, Me and Hairs All OVER the Couch”.

Oh, good Lord, people. Just make up a name and go get your own book and stop making me dance around here like an organ-grinder's monkey!

You know, that just brought back a VERY early childhood memory. When I was a child, I actually SAW an organ grinder and dancing monkey!

I was about 5-years-old. My parents had taken me to a local fair to temporarily distract from a new little brother, who’d just arrived to usurp my place as ruler of house, home and all things “Grandparent”.

Whoa! Sorry. I’ll get into that at a later date once I’ve worked it out in therapy.

As we left the fair, there was a man who had a large...well...organ...on a stick (I swear...this is NO double entendre...unless you want it to be... no judgement here, my friends) and he had a little monkey on a leash

The monkey was wearing a tiny cap and jacket and cavorted to the music. He also carried a little pewter cup. If you held out a coin, that precious little monkey would come take it from your hand, drop it in his cup, then tip his little cap to you.

I probably begged around ten bucks worth of quarters from my parents,s just to keep that monkey coming my way. And he did. He would turn his nose up at pennies and wouldn't take them. Nickels and dimes were ok, but if you held out a quarter, he was yours!!

Yeah, there was a sign that said "Do not touch the monkey". At least that's what my parent's said. And they kept saying it over and over. But I'd given him so many quarters that we'd bonded, right? He was doing tricks for ME that he wasn't doing for any other kid! He came to ME first when he emptied his little cup and came back for more!! Surely he couldn't possibly mind if I just reached out to gently touch him? Unlike the other stupid children around me, who would grab or try to hug, I-due to my superior animal understanding (as evidenced by our lightning-fast bonding...no amount of quarters in the world could've MADE that happen, right?) would settle for a comforting, feather-light pat.

So, I reached out and stroked its little arm. The monkey spun around, bared its teeth and made as if to bite me. I was terrified! It was made all the worse by the filthy, toothless organ grinder who laughed raucously at me.

"I hate that stupid monkey!" I screamed to my mother. The monkey was still looking for money and ignoring me completely. So much for the relationship I thought we had.

"Stupid monkey!" I stomped my foot, still crying. Pointing at it, I yelled “Mama, Daddy that's a bad monkey! You tell that man to spank his monkey!”

It was my father who grabbed me and quickly moved us along as the mean-monkey-owning-man guffawed loudly.

And I never understood why.

Is it me or do you fell like you need a shower just reading this far into the post? I swear, this is the dirtiest, non-dirty entry, I've ever written.

The takeaway so far is twofold: Avoid all things “monkey” like the plague. The second is that you have a very dirty mind.

I knew there was something I liked about you!