When I was in college, I spent a semester abroad in Europe and happened to visit Spain during Holy Week. I thought the procession of the penitents was very cool-looking in a spooky sort of way, so I came home with a souvenir candy container in the shape of a typical penitent's costume. It was about six inches tall and looked like one of these guys, but metallic red and with nothing in its hands.
Fast forward to my first house in the Beverly neighborhood on the far South Side of Chicago. At the top of the stairs to the second floor, there was a built-in shelving unit suitable for displaying tchotchkes; the candy container was one of the tchotchkes displayed there.
When it came time to sell that house and move to Minnesota, the candy container remained in place. (This was before the era of elaborate staging of houses for sale.) One day we met with our real estate agent. She was shaking her head in dismay.
She explained that she had just showed the house to a black couple and that they had inquired about the Ku Klux Klan figurine.
They didn't make a bid on the house.
Call me a fool, but somehow I had not considered the possibility that the candy container would be interpreted in this manner. What kind of scumbag would display a KKK figurine in a home for sale? Surely the whole world would immediately recognize that the figurine represented a Holy Week penitent from Spain!
I thought it wise to remove the candy container from the tchotchke shelf.
I still own it, stashed away somewhere in a box in my basement. When it comes time to sell my current house, if I'm still around, this particular souvenir will remain undisplayed.
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