We’re sort of having a collision of stories here. One part “Station 12, Jesus Dies Upon the Cross.” One part “Venus on the Half Shell.” I’m really not having a problem with the collision of imagery, so much as I am with the three-foot-high barnacles. You’d need an awful lot of lemon butter to make that work.

John 19:33-35: And the soldiers nailed him to two seriously massive tongue depressors, with a periwinkle to his left and right. And the first periwinkle said, “Surely you are the son of God, free yourself, and us as well!” But the second periwinkle said “Do not mock him, for he has done nothing wrong. Will you remember me when you come into your kingdom?”

And Jesus said, “A talking shellfish? Yeah, probably. a bit hard to forget. I do think I’d remember that.”

So beautiful. Oh artist who had the foresight to combine shells with a plasti-chrome crucifix, I salute you. I did not understand the meaning of art until now.

Goodwill on 2222 and Lamar, Austin

Someone needs to call an exterminator. Their shoehouse is filled with rabbits.

Rabbits, or mice. I’m not sure which. The ears say rabbit. The body and thin whiplike tail says “mouse.” The hooked clawlike hands really say “gargoyle,” or maybe “Nosferatu.”

Theory one: balancing an Easter egg on the point of his nose. Theory two: Nasal cyst. Do note the doughlike foreleg. This is clearly some sort of extruded, quick-rise life form. The unbaked “Pillsbury Doughboy” of the rabbit set. Yum.

Good lord, it’s got bunnies coming and going. Ever since they installed a pet door on their size 175 extra wide, they can’t keep the vermin out. They act like they practically own the place.

Do lips normally roam freely about the body? I didn’t think so. And yet, definitive proof, if of course you take “painted on the back of a ceramic boot” as anatomical canon. Shoe bunnies have detachable mouths that can drift around their faces and land somewhere below their chins. I assume this is going into a child’s room of some sort–or was supposed to, I note that it actually went to Goodwill. I hope they weren’t planning on being a veterinarian when they grow up.

Goodwill on I35 and 290 near Walmart, Austin

Carrots. Just … just give ‘em here. Really. I’ll stop any time I want to, no worries. Just three or four more. Six, tops. Maybe eight. Seriously, though, it’s not like it’s a thing, I just like carrots. I’m not hurting anybody or nothing, I just…look, buddy, just give me a bag of Bird’s Eye frozen nibblets and we can both get out of here, okay? I need the…I need the eyesight.

Oh, the fevered expression of a carrot junky. He’s double-fisting the things now. Look at those huge bloodstained eyes, the orange teeth…there’s probably a 12-step program for this.

Tragic. He’s already lining up his next hit.

Parents, take some time out this Easter to have a talk with your children about members of the Umbelliferae family. One conversation tonight can save five, even as much as ten, dollars at the grocery store.

Hey, it’s a cheap high.

Of course, the real question is who’s helping the neighborhood lops and chaudries get all these carrots? They’re a controlled substance, after all. Or at least it’s a pain for them to reach the counter at the grocery store, it’s a little high.

Sadly, many medical “professionals” are pushing root vegetables now, using their licenses to acquire prescription-grade carrots and passing them on to the youth. You can’t trust anyone. It’s “healthy,” they said.

Bunny Crack from the Goodwill on I35 and 183, Dr. Wiggly from The Goodwill near Anderson Mill and 183, Austin.

I love how terrified infants look exactly like a walk-on cameo from Alfred Hitchcock’s House of the Young. Particularly if Hitchcock dressed in an adorable little pink number with a high Empire waist. No-one can look shocked, indeed fatally affronted, like a 60-year-old Southern woman or a baby. Or Hitchcock…but.

But something is obviously terrifying this little girl. What is it? What could possibly so disturb an infant that she won’t sit still for an “adorable baby” photo besides, of course, loud noises, soft noises, sudden shifts in the Dow-Jones index, the photographer, or Wednesdays?

Holy shit. It’s Easter.

For the love of god, little girl! Wiggle! Wiggle like you’ve never wiggled before! Easter’s cresting the pillow and there’s murder–or chocolate eggs–in its eyes!

I actually walked right by this until my partner said “you know, you missed the Easter bunny about to eat a little girl in the art bin.” And, yeah, there she was, and there Easter was. Frankly, I feel this way about any major holiday. Thanksgiving, in particular, likes to wait until you’re in a state of false security before leaping–”You thought I was celebrated on the weekend, didn’t you?!?”

So parents: keep your children away from stealthy rainbow bunnies this Easter–or you’ll be paying for therapy 15 years later.

Goodwill on 2222 and Lamar, Austin

…And then the Easter Bunny’s head exploded. Boom!

Sometimes you can get a clear view into the mind of the artist. Like with Devilbunny, The artist presumably really hated kids, and wanted to give them heart attacks. I don’t know what this artist was hoping to achieve. It looks a little like an abstract exercise in target shooting.

I hope that, whatever happened, it made a really great noise.

Maybe those aren’t cartoony detonations. Maybe they’re whiskers. In which case, the rabbit was probably in a better place with the explosions. Now it’s living its life in a state of blind confusion, unable to see past its nose, stumbling around behind a bad case of catastrophic whisker failure. If there’s one small grace, it’s that it’s got a clever decoy on its butt.

I think that Easter is 20% more festive with the regular sound of a bunny bumping into walls. Keep looking, bunny! The eggs are right in front of you!

Goodwill on Brodie in South Austin

And I would give it to him. Absolutely, in a heartbeat, if it would keep him as far away from me as possible.

The Goodwill “Blue Hanger” outlet store actually isn’t my favorite haunt, because honestly, “broken” isn’t the same as “funny,” and anything that isn’t soft and pliable isn’t going to survive long in the customer-ravaged binyard that is the Hanger. So I set my sights low, and were they ever exceeded by…this guy.

He’s six feet tall. He’s plywood. He’s DEFINITELY home-made. And he’s coming to your house for Easter.

Hippety…hoppety.

The only other critter I know with arms like that is a Tyrannosaurus, and frankly, I’d rather hug the giant lizard. I’m more comfortable with a known evil. Not this weirdly-proportioned monstrosity. It’s like a blasphemous hybrid of rabbit, street mime, and Butterball frozen turkey. At least it’s probably quiet.

Actually, that’s not at all comforting, I’d really rather know where it is. And what it wants.

For the record: Devilbunny is held together with pain. There are screws in his head and neck. Do there need to be screws in his head and neck? No. He’s plywood. They’re just there to tear flesh. Every part of him that isn’t a screw is covered with splinters. It’s like an affectionate saguaro. And the worst part is, he doesn’t even have a basket of Easter treats. No, he’s come for yours. And you better give him some. Or just throw him the neighbor’s three-year-old and run, run as if your life depended on it, which it might.

And keep telling yourself, I don’t believe in the Easter Bunny. I don’t believe in the Easter Bunny. I don—

Blue Hanger on Burleson near Highway 71, Austin

Gentle readers, we ask you now to lower your standards, just a touch, as we lean back and try to get away from this tribute to Easter. Do these guys look just a bit deep-fried, puffy and golden to anyone else? Is it just me? It might be.

Easter is nothing if not scantily clad and maybe just slightly blotto. If the mall Easter Bunny dressed like this, someone would press charges. Unless they were really into rabbits. In which case, they might like the next guy/girl/rabbit. Who frankly strikes me as just a bit whorish, in that special 1980s self-promoting singer sense of the word “whorish” rather than someone who actually trades Cadbury creme eggs for favors. That would be wrong. I’m not sure what we’ve achieved here, but it’s definitely less wrong than that.

I didn’t know that corn dogs came in designer colors. Or that the Easter Bunny coyly hides his basket behind a bouquet of said designer corn-dogs and barely-concealing ribbon. Is this appropriate for children, or a high religious holiday?

Gods, this rabbit just let himself go. We’ve got the weird beer gut, crazy “Lady Godiva’s Had a Few” ribbon wrap, and now he’s stumbling out to pass out vodka-filled eggs to the kiddies. Won’t they be surprised! This has the disreputable edge of “bunny after a serious toga party,” and that’s not a look I’m comfortable with.

The angel wisely turns away from this shameless and prurient display, as should we all.

Goodwill near Anderson Mill and 183, Austin

Hi!

There is a fine line between “mascara” and “war paint” and I fear that little bunny Fufu here has not only crossed the line, but gave it lush and full and possibly water-resistant lashes. I would never call the Easter bunny an icon of masculinity, but we’re playing some strange gender games here. That necktie in particular isn’t helping. It says, “Let’s accessorize with zinnias!” And that’s the beginning of a strange downward spiral that ends up in a “Peeps” sweatervest and a giant egg-shaped wheelbarrow.

For example.

And now we’re in some sort of Kafka/Gilliam-inspired scene from a Rankin/Bass “Tragedy of the Working Easter Bunny” movie. It’s a bitter film about a rabbit who, unappreciated by his superiors, for reasons no-one can remember, slogs wheelbarrows of eggs day after day until, finally, he dyes.

(crickets)

We’ll take another running charge at that joke later, and go back to the mascara. My god, it’s like the forbidden art of matsuge abunakkashii, or “fighting eyelashes.” Some practitioners were able to decapitate a man by standing behind him and blinking suddenly. Not that this rabbit would ever do that. Of course, I have no idea what’s in that wheelbarrow. Could be heads. Probably not, but could be.

Goodwill on Lake Austin Boulevard, Austin

It’s good to get these silly myths out of your system early. That iconic image of an aging Native American warrior on a horse looking eastward, a single tear rolling down his cheek? Wrong. Based on 400+ year of a misapprehension.

Centuries of cultural war between Native Americans and European colonists were started entirely because the local New England tribes wore far, FAR too much make-up, big froofy earrings, and apparently died their hair in elaborate concentric circles. As staunch far-right religious conservatives kicked out of the country for being irritatingly non-British, the Puritan colonists were horrified (or secretly titillated) by their initial encounter with a tribe of shirtless, made-up men with large, full lips, and wrote up an extensive 200-year pogrom before the ink had dried on the Mayflower Compact.

It must be said, though –at the first Thanksgiving Dinner, Miantonomi’s turkey rissotto with cranberry and sweet wine remoulade was fabulous.

Little-known fact–members of the Haudenosaunee tribe traditionally adorned themselves with tattoos commemorating their first utterly failed hunt. This fellow was viciously trompled by a Great Dane, a particularly auspicious trompling.

Well, I thought it was a guy. I’m not sure, though, the pixie cut is kind of flattering, but looks more like a youngish Ellen Degeneres than any sort of noble savage. Those fake plaster indians, always breaking gender roles.

Goodwill on Parmer near I35, Austin

That reminds me, it’s time to clean out the fridge.

I’m not sure what’s for dinner tonight. Nothing served in a crockpot should be that bursting with life, unless it’s been sitting out for a few days. Even then, what the hell kind of cooking experiment coughs up mountain laurel? The mushrooms I can handle, they’re opportunistic. I’m sure that if I left a big bowlful of…something…out, it’d develop mushrooms after a while. But little tiny trees are beyond the pale. You have to have committed some major kitchen sins to end up with a heaping bowl of mountain laurel.

Not sure what the yellow pods are. They look armed and dangerous, a bit like something out of a low-budget sci-fi movie. I’m waiting for one of them to tense up, cough, and blow a seed across the aisle into the coffee mug section.

Traditionally, as a part of the Thanksgiving feast, the pawnbrokers would decorate a tree with fruits for the orphans. Of course, it was a very small tree. With very small fruits. But the deeply destitute should be thankful for the little things.

A lovely bouquet of dried corn cobs, a misplaced feather, and Brazilian pygmy oranges for the scamp on the crutches. There you go. Nail it all down to a bowl of Styrofoam and pretend the little nipper could get some nourishment out of it.

I’m guessing this is intended as a holiday bookend or plaque, but once the festive holiday rats have chewed through the outer layer of leaves and twigs to get to the tasty, tasty hot glue layer, it’s less visually appealing. If it was visually appealing before, we rather doubt it.
Savers on South Lamar, Austin