For Sale: 18-Foot Tall Topless Wooden Mermaid

If you’ve ever dreamed of owning a huge, wooden mermaid with big, exposed breasts, now is your chance. All you need is three grand and a chainsaw.

The 18-foot tall mermaid has graced the front yard of Leeway Overlee resident Paul Jackson since 2004, when Paul and wife Nancy had the bright idea to carve something out of their dying 100+ year old white ash tree. Nancy, in a moment of benevolence, suggested a mermaid, to satisfy Paul’s dual loves of fish and women. The final product, carved by Frederick, Md. artist Scott Dustin, featured what the Washington Post’s Laura Sessions Stepp described as “a shapely derriere and bare breasts that must be at least size DD.”

The busty mermaid, named “Damaged Goods” or D.G. for short, has attracted neighborhood and media attention ever since her controversial creation. She received the aforementioned Washington Post write-up shortly after Labor Day 2004 — in an article entitled “Majestic or Monstrous?” — and, more recently, she was the focus of a Connection Newspapers piece entitled “From Controversy to Landmark.” She’s also listed on RoadsideAmerica.com, an “online guide to offbeat tourist attractions.”

All is not well in paradise, however. D.G.’s roots are weakening and Paul has decided to sell rather than watch her teeter. He’s asking for $3,000, and not a dime less.

“Buyer is responsible for ‘slicing her off’ and transporting her to her new home,” he writes on his Craigslist ad. If you want to inspect the goods, D.G. can be viewed from the street or the sidewalk, on the south side of the 6200 block of Lee Highway.

Hat tip to M. Crider