NaBloPoMo Day 17: I’ve been using the wrong name all these days so far but I suppose it doesn’t matter. Yesterday I finally made it official by actually registering because I saw someone on another blog signed up late also. I can’t imagine why I did that but I did–just a rule follower at heart I guess. I’m late posting today, not because I can’t think of anything to write about, but because this is one of those days I just don’t feel like writing anything. . . I feel very boring, but here goes:

I was in our local Super Super Food & General market where you can buy just about anything you’re looking for. Judging from the number of snuggie blankets with sleeves they had in stock a couple of weeks ago and the number I saw (or didn’t see) in the store today, a lot of people are going to feel snuggly and warm on Christmas. I also noticed something I don’t remember seeing since sometime around 1948.

I don’t know what they were called back then, but the proprietor’s wife there in Branch’s Store in the village of Ellisville in north central Florida had a clay head way up on a high shelf. Not for sale, but for decoration. Novelty items were either not readily available there in that country village, because it’s the only I ever saw, or no one could afford frivolity. I know that no one in our family could. Because it was rare, people stopped by to see and comment on it. The first time I saw it, it was just a brownish colored head with Negroid features. Miz Branch soaked it real good in water,  and kept it watered, and over the weeks it grew a full head of nappy looking hair.

Yes, it was like the Chia pets you see every Christmas season now since the early 1980’s when they caught on big time. As far as I know, though, until recently there were mostly animals available, and I supposed that why they were called “pets”.

I must say I felt a bit offended at this year’s array of Chia pets. I’m pretty sure the Obama one was on the drawing board first. Then somebody decided maybe they oughta add the other two presidential offerings, lest someone decide it was racist. I don’t imagine Miz Branch is still living all these years later, but if she were still around and these were offered for sale, I’m pretty sure I know which one she’d choose to put on that same high shelf. And all those same people would stop in and laugh at it. They might even buy one of their own though. That’s about all that’s changed as far as I can tell.

What do you think? Who buys those things? And what the heck are they for, anyway? Anyone?