The Tack Room

I don't want to be filthy, stinking rich. I'm convinced that it would do me more harm than good in the long run--camels and eyes of needles and all that, you know.

I don't need to be wealthy, but I do hope that I'm one day well-off enough to fulfill my life-long dream. I want to be rich enough to buy a house that has a room that I don't need for anything. I want a house with a room that can be devoted to one unique, pointless purpose.

I want a Tacky Room.

I want a room I can wallpaper in red velvet and gold on one wall and pyschedellic 60s flowers on another. A room with two doors would be best, so one entry can have swinging saloon doors and one can have beads like Greg's attic room in the Brady Bunch. I need a room with rainbow shag carpet.

I want a room I can fill with the silliest, tackiest tchotchkes ever invented. A room where I can put the chaise lounge in the shape of a stilletto-heeled shoe, covered in leopard print faux fur (I've yearned for it since I saw it in a boutique window in Cannon Beach years ago). I'll have an entire orchestra full of those embalmbed frogs with wooden musical instruments you can buy in Mexico. I'll have a whole collection of figurines of animals engaged in improbable activities and wearing unusual outfits. I'll have a "Hang in There" kitten poster in an ostentatious gold frame. I'll have china cabinet full of "Number #1 ________" mugs. I'll have a shelf devoted to quilted toilet paper cozies. I'll have library of cookbooks devoted to Jell-o. A closet full of fuzzy cartoon character slippers. There will be a giant velvet painting of Elvis and Jesus playing poker with dogs in visors--I'll commission it if I must, but I'm sure someone is selling it out of the back of a van somewhere in Pennsyltucky.

It will be my very own Gallery of the Absurd. A Museum of Modern Tack. I bet I could charge admission!

There's just one problem: how do handle it when someone asks me why their very thoughtful Christmas gift is on a shelf in my Tacky Room? There's not a diplomat on earth who would be able to salvage that situation.