Update 2:30 p.m. Tuesday: We have a winner. Janet’s number came up — and she responded immediately. So she’s the winner of the cute Kit-Cat clock. ENTRIES NOW CLOSED. Thanks for playing, everyone. More fun giveaways surely on their way soon!
Spring is springing — and to celebrate all the sunshine, lollipops, rainbows, and unicorns that come with this season of renewal, we’re doing a fun pop-up giveaway this weekend. You can win a classic piece of Americana — A Kit Cat clock — contributed by our friends at Kit-Cat Clocks, who have been making these clocks in the U.S. of A. since 1932. Continue on for the rules and the deadline…
How to enter to win a Kit Cat clock:
- To win, you must be a subscriber to our newsletter — (Yes, this is “what’s in it for the blog” – you can opt out at any time after the contest ends)
- To enter, use the Comment field on this post below and tell us… where you’d hang your Kit Cat clock… or why just looking at this invention just brings out a smile… or just say hey.
- One entry per person. Note: All comments are going into moderation and are being approved when we get to them.
- U.S. and Canada delivery addresses only.
- Entries close on Monday, March 23, around 10 a.m. Eastern— that is, I will lock down the Comments field at that time.
- Prize: A classic black Kit-Cat clock like the one shown here. It will be mailed to you by Kit-Cats.
- I will choose the winner via the Random Number Generator at random.org. I will email that person. [Tip: Be sure you enter your email address correctly in the email field of the Comment form.] They will have 5 business days to respond. If I do not hear from them, I will choose the next person who commented. Lather, rinse, repeat. I will post the winner’s name as soon as all is confirmed.
- Terms of use apply.
Many thanks to Kit-Cat for contributing the prize for this giveaway — check out all their designs on their website here.
Note: This is NOT a paid or sponsored post. Pam just got the itch for a happydoodle giveaway, reached out to Kit-Cat, and meow, here we are. Good luck to one and all!
elaine says
I would give it to my teenage daughter (the cat lady) she would put it in her vintage inspired bedroom.
Doris says
Sign me up for this giveaway!
Thank you
Anna says
I would hang the Kit- Cat clock above my 1953 W Edgewood stove.
It wood nicely complement my 50’s style white kitchen.
Al says
Maude stared out the window of her Manhattan skyrise apartment and fretted. Maximilian’s zeppelin was overdue from Svalbard. She looked southward, toward the Empire State Building and the empty zeppelin mooring mast on top. She looked back to her kitchen wall and checked the time on her Kit-Cat Klock — a shiny black cat mounted on the wall whose eyes and tail swivel to count the seconds that Maximilian has been in danger. The zeppelin was six hours late.
It wasn’t unusual for flights to delayed. But Maximilian was already over the Atlantic when Maude learned the Nazis had captured the Count. Their coterie was unraveling quickly. And if the Nazis discovered Maximilian’s connection to the Count, they would deal with him over the North Atlantic before they reached New York.
Tick-tock. Tick-tock. The Kit-Cat Klock looked left and then right with each second, scanning the room for trouble. It’s a fitting metaphor, Maude thought, for a chorus girl from Kansas who got herself wrapped up in a bit of international intrigue.
Suddenly, there was a knock on the door. Maude jumped up, ran to the door and then paused, “Who is it?” she demanded in the sternest voice should muster.
“My dear,” came the conversational reply, “a Bohemian prince never introduces himself. It would be the crassest breach of etiquette. And after all, that’s what butlers are for.”
Maude open the door quickly and whispered, “Get inside.”
Prince Albert quickened his pace for no one, especially a beautiful woman. His entrance was as ostentatious as he was. Before crossing the threshold he bowed to Maude and acknowledged her with the line, “Lady Maude of Salida.” He then made an entrance into Maude’s apartment as if he were walking under the drawn swords of an honor guard.
Prince Albert’s suit was impeccable. The flower in his lapel was impossibly fresh, and his walking stick had touched down on each of the five continents. He smelled of smoke and cherries and alcohol.
Tick-tock. Left-right. The Kit-Cat Klock sized up the prince in a sweep of his eyes without missing a beat.
In his hands Albert held a large loaf of rustic bread.
“Dinner?” Maude said, eyeing the peasant loaf.
“Dessert!” Albert contradicted. And he lifted a carefully cut top off of the loaf of bread to reveal a cleverly concealed Kodak Brownie camera. “The Nazis love to wine and dine the royalty of the nations they plan to invade,” he continued. “So I brought them this authentic rustic bread and several bottles of our finest Moravian wine — an off year, of course.”
“Weren’t you afraid they would discover the camera, Albert?” Maude questioned.
“My dear,” Albert replied. “It takes a refined palate to appreciate the subtleties of rustic Bohemian cooking. Those plebian louts turned up their noses at this authentic loaf, as I knew they would. They drank buckets of the wine, however. I’m afraid they’ll invade the vineyards first.”
“Not if you get cracking,” Maude replied. “Time is wasting.” She glanced to the shiny, black Kit-Cat Klock in the kitchen. Tick-tock. Tick-tock. Left-right. Spy-versus-spy. The Kit-Cat Klock measured them all with the sweep of its unblinking eyes.
“Is the darkroom still in the water closet?” Albert asked Maude.
“You know it, Toots!” Maude replied. And she pushed him towards the bathroom door.
“Enough!” Prince Albert stated. And he straightened his jacket and marched directly into the bathroom, closing the door behind him. He found the hidden latch on the side of the medicine cabinet and swiveled the entire cabinet downward revealing a completely hidden, completely functional darkroom. With the press of a few switches the room went pitch dark and was then illuminated with red safety light.
“I ordered us dinner,” Albert shouted through the door. “I hardly ate a bite today. Bavarian food is ghastly.”
“I’m not hungry,” Maude replied. Just then there was another knock at the door.
Maude hurried to the door in her practiced way, but before she could say anything a voice from the other side announced, “Algonquin Delivery Service!” And there was the honk of a bulb horn.
When Maude turned the knob the door burst open and at least 8 waiters in full dress flooded into the room carrying large, silver platters of food above their heads. An uncountable swarm of well-dressed people pushed through the door among the waiters. They all moved too fast for Maude to even get a good look at them.
Honk! That bulb horn sounded, again. And Maude found herself face to face with a very attentive Harpo Marx. He immediately put a hand on each of her shoulders, honked twice, and before she knew it she was blindfolded and being spun around by Harpo. After the third spin Harpo stopped her abruptly, the blindfold came off, and with a maniacal grin Harpo pulled a donkey’s tail out of one of the pockets of his overcoat. He jammed a 4 inch hatpin through the top of the tail, placed it in Maude’s hand and pointed her directly at Tallulah Bankhead’s posterior, which was prominently displayed as the actress bent over a tray of food that had been placed on Maude’s ottoman.
Before Maude could protest, Robert Benchley intervened with the statement, “Do you have any gin, my good woman?”
“Yes, in the kitchen,” Maude replied automatically. “Under the Kit-Kat Klock by the Allied Clock Company of Portland, Oregon.” When Maude pointed to the kitchen she was shocked to see Harpo Marx already there holding her bottle of gin. His eyes swept back and forth in opposition to the Kit-Cat Klock. Harpo and the cat would look at each other one second and then both looked away the next.
Robert Benchley, paying no attention to Harpo whatsoever, simply replied, “Oh, dear. I hope you have enough.”
* * *
Meanwhile at Battery Park, a flock of seagulls lifted off from the water’s edge. A lone figure was swimming to shore from about 25 yards out in the Hudson River. When he was close enough, the man stood and walked to shore through the waves. He wore a thick, woolen military coat and had an attache case handcuffed to his left wrist. Once he’d walked into into park, he stopped for a moment and ripped the SS patches from the lapels of his coat. He tore the red Nazi armband from his left sleeve and dropped them all into the nearest trash bin.
Determined and undaunted by his recent swim in the Hudson River, the man walked up to a hobo on a park bench nearby. “Hey Buddy? Any place around here a guy can get a cup of coffee and telephone?” he asked the tramp.
“Patrick,” the vagabond replied. “The name’s Patrick.”
The man from the bay smiled. “Any place around here a guy can get a cup of coffee and a telephone, Patrick?”
Patrick replied slowly, “Well, that depends.” And then with a quick, accusatory tone Patrick asked, “Who won the 1932 World Series?”
“Why, you must not be from around here, Patrick,” the man replied calmly. “Every New Yorker knows the Yankees beat the Chicago Cubs in the 1932 World Series. But I’ve been away for a while. Has Babe Ruth called any more home runs while I was gone?”
Patrick nodded and made an accepting grunt. “Head down Washington Street to Luigi’s,” Patrick said. “They gotta pay phone, and the second cup’s on the house.”
“Thank you kindly, Patrick,” the man replied. And walked out of Battery Park still dripping water from the Hudson River.
Once inside the phone booth at Luigi’s the man placed a call to a familiar number.
Maude heard the phone ringing in her kitchen and brushed past Dorothy Parker to catch the call in time. “Who is it?” Maude demanded when she picked up the receiver.
“Do you have Prince Albert in the can?” Maximilian asked.
A wave of relief and joy swept over Maude, and she cracked a wide smile. “Why yes, as a matter of fact he’s in the can right now,” Maude replied. “How’d you get here? There’s nothing moored to the top of the Empire State Building?”
“My trip ended a few miles offshore,” Maximilian replied. “I’m afraid I had to swim the rest. The captain said Manhattan was too windy. So they are going to park that beast somewhere in New Jersey.”
“Hey, it sounds like there’s a party going on. What do you get up to when I’m at work?”
“Oh, Albert invited a few friends over for dinner, that’s all.” Maude replied. “Hurry home, darling!”
At that moment Harpo Marx ran into the kitchen holding a large croquet mallet over his head. Women gasped and men stepped aside as Harpo ran straight to the Kit-Cat Klock by the Allied Clock Company. Harpo struck a blow directly to the clock face, sending shiny, black shards of cat flying about the kitchen. The mallet stuck in the wall from the force.
Harpo then pulled up his left sleeve and drew a large tick mark on the inside of his left forearm. It was the fourth tick mark in a row. With some sense of satisfaction, Harpo pulled down his sleeve and set about making himself a drink.
“That’s his fourth one today,” Dorothy Parker replied dryly. “He plans to take all nine lives before midnight. You don’t by any chance have a real cat, do you?”
Anna Bendisz says
I would hang the Kit-Cat clock above my 1953 white
Wedgewood stove.It wood nicely complement my 50’s style white
kitchen.
Susan H says
I used to have one of these, I miss the cheery smile and would put it in my kitchen right where I can see it clearly.
Jean Bowen says
I have longed for and loved this piece. It would be fun in our grandkids guest bedroom.
Dani says
I have a wall of vintage kitchen utensils as my focal wall in the kitchen. If I had this clock he’d be the centerpiece.
Amy says
I’d be tickled to hang a Kit-Cat in my 1946 kitchen!
Anita Johnston says
I have always loved Kit Kat clocks!!!! If I were the Lucky Winner, I woukd put this great clock in my Kitchen!!!!
: )