Nancy Merrill’s latest photo challenge is ‘Whimsical‘. My contribution is this shot of a display of red, retro, plastic kitchenware in the City Museum of St. Louis. Why the words in the speech bubble tickle my sense of whimsy / humour / irony, I’m struggling to explain. My friends would no doubt say it’s because I have a dodgy sense of humour: I can laugh quite a lot at things that apparently aren’t funny, including my own jokes.
To clarify, this doesn’t make me laugh but it does make me smile. Decades ago, back in the last century, all that a big-shouldered, kitchen-fearing guy would have needed to feel properly masculine wielding kitchen implements would have been the right colour of equipment.
Was it a genuine marketing concept or a one off? I’d guess the latter, but I’ll never know.
Incidentally, if I was offered my choice of any of these, I’d take the clock – it has such a classic retro look – although the lady in the pinny appeals to me too.
Susan Rushton 
I’d go for the squeeze bottle that holds water to put out flare ups when barbecuing as I remember we had the exact same one when I was a kid.
I’d never have guessed, even though it has a barbecue picture on it.
Tell you the truth, it’s an approach I wouldn’t have thought of. 😉
Me neither.
The Lady in the Pinny is the same as my mother’s old green water ‘sprinkler’ for when she was ironing cottons and linens……now I’m feeling old LOL 🙂
Like you, I love the retro clock.
Thanks for identifying her. I had noted the cap and wondered if she was a sprinkler – I was hoping she wasn’t for vinegar.
Pinny! I should have been able to guess “pinafore,” but I couldn’t. Another great word for which I thank you! I did get a good chuckle out of how you laugh at un-funny things, including your own jokes. Having fallen off my chair laughing as I read your post about your sweetheart’s truck some time ago, I beg to differ about your sense of humor. As to the red whimsies, they do bring a smile. My dad, who willingly helped out in the kitchen but whose cooking skills were mostly about toast, was daffy about red. He’d have quickly snatched up all these things (and my mother would have just as quickly thrown them out). I pre-date these by a bit, but still they do conjure up some memories. I wonder which of today’s doo-dads will become tomorrow’s whimsy.
It seems like a poor rule that we ought not to laugh at our own jokes. Even the idea of telling a joke that others might not get makes me laugh.
My dad was a cheese and beetroot sandwich kind of cook. Perhaps together they could have rumbled up melted cheese and beetroot on toast… although I’m not sure that would have been an improvement.
Well, of course you’d have to laugh at the thought of telling a joke that no one would laugh at! As to our dads, I think lunch would be hilarious, possibly more hilarious than yummy.
I have similar responses to my jokes 🙂
What is wrong with everyone who knows us?
I get that one 🙂
🙂