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26 june 2000

i think taxidermy is pretty interesting

I've always found taxidermy pretty interesting. I'm not a taxidermist, nor do I hunt, nor do I even eat meat. I think it's the trophy-collecting mindset that interests me more than the trophies themselves. I spent a lot of time growing up in Northern Indiana, where plenty of restaurants decorate with heads. They were mostly deer heads, although we used to eat at one restaurant where we ate under the watchful eye of a well-preserved moose. It's a creepy way to spend an hour.

Two years ago, I was going to a writers' conference in the mountains of North Carolina. On my way up to the retreat center, I stopped at a roadside gas station for some coffee, since I had driven down from Indiana and was exhausted from the final leg of endless winding roads. Now, I've got my fair share of astigmatism. So when my eyes get fatigued, I'm completely unaware of what's around me, because I'm too busy figuring out what's in front of me. What's worse, is that I used to have this long, thick "mop chic" hairstyle. So I had no peripheral vision, either.

I finally found the coffee bar, grabbed a Power Glug deluxe, and emptied the decanter into it. As I raised the cup to my lips and tilted back my head, I shrieked, spilling coffee all over myself, and dribbling some of it on the squirrel six inches from my face.

You read correctly. Immediately to the right of the coffee bar was a shelf filled with the most menacing chipmunks and squirrels I've ever seen in my life. I think they were supposed be little live-action taxidermy pieces, but they just looked rabid. All they needed was some shaving cream dabbed around their little mouths. Perched on their hind legs, fangs bared, eyes bugged, claws extended--I think the guy who bagged these yard monsters wanted his collection to look more Hitchcock than hunting prize. For the record, I've never seen a pack of yard rodents quite this. . .vengeful.

So I'm standing there, very wet, somewhat perturbed. The clerk looks at me as if nothing awry has taken place and says, "Thems are for sale if you want one. My daddy does 'em. Pretty good, huh? He's real artistic."

Now what can I say to this. Let's face it, I'm not from around here. I'm a guest, and I'm an idiot for not pulling my hair back and wearing my glasses in the first place. In these parts, the kid is right. Taxidermy is, to many people, art. To quote David Wilcox, some of these things are just "eastern mountain Appalachian roadside modern art," and it's not my place to wonder why the hell he'd put his gallery next to the coffee. It's his house. People like the kid's dad preserve small places for a day longer, and give people like me something to remember them by. If that was an ordinary 7-11, I wouldn't have had a thing to write about today.

If he's reading this, though, please don't put a moose head above the drink machine. It would look much better by the Twinkies.