Show & Tell 5: My Desktop Toucan

This is my desktop toucan. In my head, I call him Toucan Sam. Original, right?

He sits just under my computer monitor. I get a strange delight looking at him every day. If he went missing from my desk, I'd be pissed, and then very, very sad. I love this little guy. I don't keep a whole lot of chotchkes on my desk: a couple of mugs for the school where I work, a bottle of hand santizer, a full sized bottle of Optimism lotion from Bath & Body Works. I have a pic of the hubby of course, but it's on my side desk area, and not in my field of vision all the time. This lil dude is.

He's from Venezuela, as you can see. My dad bought this for me a few years ago. He's a photojournalist, and was on assignment in South America. He saw this, thought of me, and brought it back. My dad used to travel a lot, all over the world in fact, and I always loved the cool lil souvenirs he brought back. That's why I was especially touched when I got this when I was in college- my dad still thought of his "little girl" when he went abroad on assignment for the first time in several years.

Toucans have always had a special place in my heart. I get the whole big schnozz thing, as I have quite the well-endowed nose myself. But when I was a kid, I had a really neat experience that has stayed with me to this day.

I was maybe 4 or 5 at most. Our den has a large window overlooking the backyard. In the far corner of the yard is our "garden" (aka, giant lawn clipping dumping ground that grows tiger lilies every summer). I happened to be looking outside at the garden and saw a HUGE black bird with a long banana yellow beak and subtle tints of blue plumage along the shiny black profile. Sweet jiminy, it was the bird on the Froot Loops box. (I knew this b/c I ate more artificial coloring and flavoring for breakfast than one child ever should.) And toucans weren't exactly part of the normal flora and fauna of New Jersey in the mid-80's.

I ran upstairs to tell my mom. By the time we got back downstairs, it had flown away. My mom of course entertained her youngest daughter's notion that "Sure honey, of course a big black toucan was in our backyard!" I saw right through this and begged my mom to believe me. Cue the waterworks, the pleading, and the fruitless wishes for the bird to return.

I know I saw a toucan, damnit. And now, I have my own Toucan Sam looking semi-quizzically at me five days out of the week.

Head on over to Mel's to see what the other kids are showing this week for Show & Tell!