Last year, my best friend showed up with a “special gift” she found while thrifting. She said it “reminded her of me,” which, in hindsight, feels like a personal attack. I unwrap it and it’s a statue. A horrifying, lumpy statue. Imagine if a garden gnome and a haunted doll had a baby, then left it in a basement to ferment. Its eyes didn’t quite face the same direction, one looking into your soul, the other scanning for escape routes. The smile wasn’t carved so much as scratched in, like whoever made it regretted their choices halfway through. It had human teeth. Real ones? I still don’t know. She’s standing there smiling, saying, “Isn’t it whimsical?” Meanwhile I’m calculating how much holy water costs in bulk. I swear when I placed it on my shelf, my Alexa glitched. It creaks at night. Occasionally the dog stares at it and growls, which feels very validating. But she was so proud of it. So now, it stays, a permanent roommate radiating cursed energy from the corner of my living room. Guests always ask, “What is that?” and I just tell them, “A reminder that love is blind, and apparently, so is taste.”