Monday, April 25, 2011

tiny tacky turtles

i have a confession: i love tacky sourvenir stores.

alvin's island and wings. chain or local. i love them all.

yes, i know they are filled with endless shelves of treasure crap. i just can't help myself.  from the horrible spring break t-shirts to coffee mugs shaped like boobies, and all the shell art in between.

rarely do i buy something. but if i do, it's for a reason.

case in point: turtles.

you know the ones: no bigger than half your thumb. usually a form of shell art. sometimes wearing a hat.  or glasses.  or both.

i had to buy that first one.

here's why.

the first trip david and i took together was down to gulf shores for a wedding of one of my sorority sisters.  this was only a few weeks after we had been seeing each other, but i was already smitten. (no secret there) and it was on the beach across the street from the awesomely bad hotel that we decided to dtr. yep, heavy discussion for sunbathing. 

seeing as how this conversation eventually led me to my soul mate, i've adopted a sort of fondness for lower alabama beaches.

on the way out of town, i made him visit alvin's island.

a few months later, i returned on business and decided to buy a gag sourvenir for david.

you guessed it: i had finally found a reason to buy one of those ugly funny turtles.

he laughed.

then, wouldn't you know it, the gift shop at our honeymoon resort had a wooden bobble head turtle. and once again, i had to have it.

2 weeks ago, in the busy, hot airport in jamaica, david remarked that "we haven't found a turtle yet!" the search was on. and, as luck would have it, even the jamaicans have a soft spot for tacky turtles.

so now, yes, the turtles are tacky, but they are no longer pointless.

they're memories.

2 comments:

  1. i love tacky souvenir stores too!! glad ya'll found a turtle to take home. let the tradition stand!

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  2. aw - that's adorable! Jeff and I tried to do that early on in our marriage... but the only thing they had everywhere we visited was magnets.. and I like "clean" fridges... :) what a cute story!

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