#140 In which our hero discusses his muse.

This is the Minstrel:


He may appear to be carved from the finest of hardwoods, but oh no! No, sir, this amazing relic is 100% plastic resin.

This objet d’art used to hang above the couch in the family room when I was growing up. I must mention that the family room was covered in wood paneling, creating a combination that only now as an adult do I appreciate for its full awesomeness.

I have fond memories of playing with this thing as a kid. It was my own Mt. Rushmore for legions of G.I. Joes, Star Wars guys and various and sundry action figures who were forever climbing it’s treacherous and wind-swept surface to recover rare gems or finally put the tyranny of Dark Vader to an end. It’s amazing that I never tore this thing off the wall. Then again, if I had, it’s not like it would have broken.

Finally my parents, in a fit of good taste, took him down and banished him to the basement. Where he spent many long and lonely years.

Until I rediscovered him. I had finished college and was moving into an apartment with my girlfriend, and was home picking through the basement for stuff for my new place. I asked mom if I could have the Minstrel (who, oddly enough, calls him “The Troubadour”), and she reluctantly parted with him. And when I say “reluctantly,” I mean, “she couldn’t get him out of the house quickly enough.”

The Minstrel found a home on my wall for several years. To say that my then-girlfriend’s interior decorating talents were… lacking … is putting it mildly. I still remember a particularly horrible Brothers Hildebrant print featuring a unicorn and a waterfall. But look, I put up the freaking Minstrel, so I’m not saying my taste was any better.

When I moved in with The Scientist she made it pretty clear that the Minstrel was not to grace any wall in her house. Being that the mortgage lacked my name, I didn’t really have room to argue. But, it became a moot point when I took this plastic prize into work and hung him proudly in my office.

People have a strange reaction to the Minstrel. Most are cautious at first, not being sure if I think he is a work or art or a kitschy throw-back. Then they want to know why I hung it on my wall. “He is my muse,” I answer.

Sadly, I lost that job and didn’t have an office for years. I considered bringing him into my office at the junk mail place… but I just couldn’t. Not only because my douche-bag boss would never appreciate the humor, but because, in my mind, bringing in the Minstrel is making a commitment. I like it here, is what I’m saying.

So finally, after languishing in the basement (during the move to the new house, one of my friends hung up the Minstrel in the living room. When The Scientist finally saw him, she said in a slightly alarmed voice, “Um, is that were you’re hanging that?” He was again banished to the basement thereafter) for far too long, the Minstrel is again in his proper place: hanging on the wall behind my office chair, where he looks down at me with his soulful eyes, as if to say, get back to work, slacker!