You Inherit My Toenail Collection

My friend JayC was telling me that her parents have been collectors for a number of years. One of their collections includes a variety of bibles. But it is the other collection that her parents have promised to both her and her brother as part of their inheritance. I think she is secretly hoping that they will change their minds.

This got me thinking about other families and what kind of weird things people inherit from their relatives. I've always said that I don't want anything from my mum's collection of over 800 dolls and stuffed toys. It's not as if she has an original "Barbie" or "Cabbage Patch" doll. The entire collection is probably not worth more than $200, and then only to other doll collectors.

I was never really fond of collecting anything myself until my mother started complaining a number of years ago about how difficult I was to buy gifts for, so I decided to start collecting genie lamps, both because they are cute and also because I knew that I would never need to worry about being inundated with thousands of them, simply because they're not all that easy to find. 

"So what kinds of items do people leave their relatives in their will," I wondered. Initially I thought about movies and the strange things people have inherited as the basis of its plot. One common plot in both books and movies is where a relative inherits a haunted house, most of the time being completely oblivious to the home's violent history. 

There was the movie "Mouse Hunt" where two brothers inherited an old house and an old string factory, while Cuba Gooding Jr has acted in two movies where he has an interesting inheritance. In "The Fighting Temptations" Cuba's character had to create and lead a gospel choir in order to gain an inheritance, while in another movie he inherited a group of huskies. 

Http://flickr.com/photo/87836984@N00/160849607

I guess probably one of the weirdest things that people could inherit in real life would be a crypt or tomb. It's not like it's got any real value, and it's not like it's a summer house where you can go to relax. "Oh darling, pass the bubbly. And don't we have a lovely view of Albert Smith's tombstone! It gets mossier with each passing year!"

So what is the collection of items that JayC's parents have been promising to leave her and her brother? It's a collection of salt and pepper shakers. Isn't that a form of psychological torture? "If you don't behave I'll leave you my entire collection!"

Salt and pepper shakers
Photo by: Wolfgang Müller 

Salt and pepper shakers