Four Stories

by Maira Kalman

I am always wanting to deaccession, but packets keep arriving that bring great joy.
Here are three gifts and a chicken.

1. Funnel. This funnel costs $1.95. It could have been porcelain, but it is plastic. It sits on the table next to the metal funnel from India and another white funnel from Colorado. Like Band-Aids, you can never have enough funnels.

2. ABSOLUTELY NO VISITORS. The sign could have read NO VISITORS. But someone thought that it needed the ABSOLUTELY. Absolutely right.

3. Cloth watch. The watch was made in Laos. You tie it to your wrist. When you wear it, you have all the time in the world. There is a great comfort in that, of course.

4. Chicken. I lived in Rome for three months and went to Florence only once. To eat lunch in a restaurant famous for this boiled chicken. So I went to Florence to eat this chicken. And I have to tell you, the chicken sat on the plate, sparse and spare as a short story.

Maira Kalman is a New York-based illustrator and author.

This text was originally published on Maharam Stories in September, 2012.

x