Yes, I may be easy to spot in this photo– but what you’re really looking for is the Pratt & Whitney engine sticker just to the right of Molly. Dad stuck it on the truck after flying between two of these engines in a Twin Otter…

In all honesty, I don’t think I’ve met many people who qualify their upbringing as conventional. For better or for worse, we were all raised with parents who were Winging It in an environment that was of their own twisted configuration. How we children—as adults—now stumble about the planet, well, that’s the ultimate result of their little domestic science experiment.

I like to think about this a lot—particularly because a person’s individual response to stimuli is so fascinating. And then I think about some of the factors that shaped my own idiosyncrasies. Like you, I have many—and for me, one need search no further than my kitchen drawers to get an idea of what my parents have done to me.

Check this out:

Surely the Swiss came up with this…and I must have it.

It’s a spoon that bears the logo of Turkish Airlines. I love this spoon; it’s the perfect size and ergonomic curvature that I crave when digging into a bowl of ice cream or a mid-morning banana chocolate chip muffin enjoyed while sitting at my desk. It’s the ideal implement I offer up to houseguests who prefer to take their coffee sweetened and with milk. In all honesty, I actually have two of these spoons, and although no guest has ever wondered aloud about their origin, I am a bit embarrassed to expose these guys as interlopers in a sea of Pottery Barn and Laguiole cutlery.

Let me back up a bit and try to explain the spoons. Both of my parents worked in the airline industry. My dad was a pilot for almost three decades, and from my very first scratches of memory, our house was always layered with evidence of his employment.

One of the towels that ultimately ended up being used in the shop. Hilton would have been so proud…

Our bathroom towels, a lot of them were big and comfy and had markings pressed into them like the garland encircled “S” from The Sheraton, or the blocky Arabic writing followed by “Dhahran International Airport” emblazoned across the terry cloth. In our upstairs bathroom was a big cardboard box containing a cache of miniature soaps, shampoos, shower caps and shoeshine kits. When I was a teenage exchange student, Dad would send letters composed on stationary with headings like “Golden Tulip Amsterdam”, or “Hotel Nikko de Paris”. It all seemed so glamorous, unless you were his kid and dismissed this as a standard perk of the airline business.

The cellar has more than our share of airline paraphernalia…among other New England propaganda.

And then we move on to the airline accoutrements. Slender and flight-sized Republic Airlines wine glasses, Air New England matchbooks, and many foil-packed portions of  honey roasted almonds à la Northwest Orient (these were nasty, by the way)…stuff like this would often wander its way out of dad’s flight bag and into the daily clash and bang of our house.

This is kind of the best fork spork ever.

There is actually a Northwest Airlines spoon-like fork that I also like to consider. I love it so much that, during my last time at home, I actually palmed it to use in my apartment down here in DC. Maybe I just have a thing for great silverware, but it would appear that the airline industry sure knows what they’re doing when it comes to forging cutlery.

I think that the display of defunct airline companies serves as a kind of historical record that now makes me feel somewhat responsible to maintain. Only after do I ask myself, where did Dad get these stickers?!

Because I’m not up at my New England home, I asked my little brother to wander about the property and take some photos of trace airline or hotel paraphernalia (Dad retired from the business in 1997, so there’s not as much as there used to be). Like me, at first my bro had a hard time “seeing” what was actually lying around. To all of us kids, this stuff is unremarkable—completely normal. But after applying a more critical eye to our décor, he came through for me in fine form. Here’s a quick look at what we’ve got going on:

A  shot depicting some of the stuff that resides in our “museum”

This is a relatively new acquisition. Courtesy of my brother, from a hotel in Montreal…he continues to pilfer towels.

A shot of my current stationary drawer…

To this day, I still have a really hard time visiting a hotel and not assessing the takeability of their notepad and/or envelope supply. As far as towels go, I am fairly certain that the last (and perhaps only one) I acquired came in 1996 during an overnight voyage on Irish Ferries with college friends and my little brother. As we disembarked in Rosslare, I remember my (then) 14-year-old brother digging into his backpack to proudly display his souvenir of the voyage. It was a hand towel bearing the trademarked shamrock and three stripe of the liner that had just carried us from France to Ireland. Me, I shook my head as I similarly reached into my bag and produced the matching item from our now-stripped stateroom.

Classy, brainwashed children. Behold the result of our parents’ social experiment.

Yes, we may be going places. Potentially to jail…

So these days I like my job, and I’m rather keen on not getting arrested for petty theft. Also, I’d like to think that I’ve upped my standards for personal furnishings; no one really wants to use a scratchy hotel towel used a million times over by nasty strangers in the comfort of their home powder room. Still, there remains a small part of me who will not think twice when certain implements entrusted to my care while in Business Class somehow fall into my purse and wind up back in my kitchen for what I foresee as perpetuity. Clearly it is the fault of my upbringing, and as such, I will keep close tabs on my “new” stuff whenever any of my siblings come round for a visit. With role models like they had, there’s just no trusting them.