To the reader – This post is meant to be of a satirical nature. Absolutely no offence or disrespect is meant to anyone. We hope you get a good laugh out of it!
We’ve all met at least one of them – the human magpies. The ones that haunt the aisles of home improvement and décor stores randomly picking up whatever shiny product crosses their sight -exactly like the birds. They have one mission in life – to perfect their lifelong project of decorating their house. They liberally pepper their conversations with words like ‘kitsch’, ‘chinoiserie’ and ‘art nouveau’.
You’d think the Human Magpies would have homes like abodes of Gods. However, the real story is usually quite different. One foot into their homes and you’ll have to don a pair of shades. What awaits you is usually a horrifying mishmash of everything ‘fancy and cool’ enough to send you into an instant cardiac arrest or a brain aneurysm from trying to make sense of it all.
Here’s how you can identify a Human Magpie home:
- Improperly sized, strange furniture:
Furniture in these homes seldom makes sense. They normally resemble exhibits from some eclectic museum of furniture for the bizarre. Oversized, uncomfortable eyesores are commonplace in these homes. Word to the wise – watch where you sit! - Clutter: Human Magpies can never have enough. They even get labelled as hoarders sometimes but the truth is that they just can’t resist that new lamp (even if they have more than they need) or that new painting for the home. The result – mountains of clutter everywhere. After all functionality and minimalism are silly notions!
- Colour un-coordination: We have a sneaking suspicion that Human Magpies are colour-blind. Literally nothing else can explain the clash of colours in their homes. We’re not talking charmingly eclectic combinations here. Think purple and green walls. Along with colours, they also have massive trouble with pairing patterns. If you leave such a home without a migraine, you should be lauded as an especially resilient species of humanity.
- Cable jungles: You’ve seen these before. Gadget-hungry people who stock up on bizarre devices that have almost no practical use except for maybe serving as talking points. Along with these gadgets come their gazillion cables and wires. Human Magpies make no effort whatsoever to minimize them or conceal them. Our advice – apply the underwear logic here – just because you have them (cables and/or underwear) doesn’t mean you need to show them off!
- Lighting: These fascinating groups of people have a rather strange understanding of lighting. They either overcrowd their homes with terribly combined lighting solutions giving you the sense of having stepped into a psychedelic discotheque. Or their homes require visitors to come in with a pair of night vision glasses. As for natural light, it’s probably shut out because the ‘cool lighting’ needs to be emphasized.
- Lifestyle purchases: Impulse buying is a special talent that Human Magpies possess. So what if they have enough tables to block the entire apartment? They will still order that new coffee table at the online store because it looks ‘so chic’.
- Impractical elements: A table water fountain to go in the middle of the overcrowded TV display; fancy oyster and clam knife sets despite being a predominantly vegetarian household; a small rarely-cleaned aquarium which ‘is good for Vastu’; a retro poster of Jimi Hendrix right beside an ornate embossed picture frame of Goddess Lakshmi – you describe the level of impracticality and they will have it!
In conclusion, Human Magpies are a puzzling lot. Their bizarre sense of interior décor is suspected to have far-reaching social impact. If home décor is a reflection of one’s personality, Human Magpies are definitely logic-challenged, uncoordinated, whimsical beings to whom interior décor is one big adventure.