What is a monkeybox?

When I was a little girl, we had a pet monkey named Amanda. My Dad worked in the produce business, so each night he brought home that days culls in a big box - spotty cucumbers, pithy apples, limp celery, moldy oranges and the like. We called it a monkeybox. It was really just trash, but my Mom would take each piece of fruit and trim it, pare it and cut it up to make a beautiful fruit platter for Amanda. Even though it was deemed trash by one, it still had life left in it and was good for the purpose we needed it. That's how I live my life - thrifting, yard saling, looking for another's trash to be my treasure.

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Junk In My Trunk

I've always liked junk. I've saved picks from cupcakes, napkins from weddings, newspaper clippings and various other bits and bobs my entire life. At one point in my childhood I acquired a cashbox. A real metal lock with a key, cash box. And, I started putting tresures in it. Little things. Things that I loved or that had a special meaning to them. And, even though many of those things are really just junk, they were special to me. I unearthed my cashbox from the depths of my cedar chest yesterday. It brought back a lot of memories.
Look at all that stuff! I was a bonafide gumball machine addict. I loved those little plastic bubbles with a trinket in them. Who am I kidding? I still do!

Remember candy lipstick? Rain bonnets in a box? Plastic cowboys? Furry footshaped rugs?

See that plastic thumb? I got that in my "Magician of the Month Club" when I was about eight. I was quite the aspiring Magician. There is another plastic thumb inside the one you see pictured. You put the smaller one on your thumb and thelarger one inside your left hand. Tuck a ribbon into your palm then stickt he larger plastic thumb on top of the smaller thumbh and "TA-DA" the ribbon has vansished. I entertained many poor, poor visitors to our home with that trick. Over and over and over again. It's the only "Trick of the Month" that I ever mastered.
See the gold egg? That's not just any gold egg. That is a "GOLDEN EGG" from the Lucky Chicken. Gawd, how I loved the Lucky Chicken. It was a plastic chicken in a glass box with eggs surrounding the chicken. You put a quarter in it and the chicken turned around and around while saying, "Baaaaawk, bawk, bawk, bawk. Baaaawk, bawk, bawk, bawk" and then an egg would roll down the cute. There was always one lonely Golden Egg in there and I wanted one sooooooo badly. As you see, I GOT ONE! I would love to find a Lucky Chicken machine! *******

A few of my favorites. A cupcake pick from elementary school. A Pebbles pencil topper. Little squirt guns. Mickey Mouse ring. Donald Duck ring. Rubber lips. A red plastic poodle. A roller skate shoe. A peeled banana. An apple core.

*****I Googled a Lucky Chicken Machine!
Oh, how I loved the Lucky Chicken!

5 comments:

  1. Morning Shara...Too funny!!! I love your whole cash box collection and all of the goodies that were kept under lock & key! Made me smile...made me laugh! Thanks for sharing an early collection!! *elaine*

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  2. Anonymous8:29 AM

    Oh my! You are one pack rat, aren't you? Just sign me "Kind of Jealous because I didn't keep anything like that from my childhood."

    Fun stuff!

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  3. KEEP IT INTACT!! Someday The Bean will cherish it! My Mom was sorting & tossing some of her 'junk' when I was little... one of the things she 'let' me rescue was a Large skirt-type saftepin laden with little plastic charms on string ties (used to come on detergent bottles when she was younger?!) - her beloved 'silly' collection from her childhood. I still have it and won't part with it!

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  4. Do you have Golden Chick in your neck of AR? We have the lucky chicken machine in our two GC's.

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  5. I loved the trinket machines and the little prizes in cracker jacks. I have a few of those and you sure have a HUGE collection.
    Do you sell on ebay or esty?
    Happy 4th!
    Deb :)

    ReplyDelete

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