Monday, October 22, 2012

The way we roll around here

Once upon a time, about a hundred years ago, my father-in-law said,

"While I was cutting grass in front of our yard today I found a little bag.  I guess it is yours so I put it on top of that post beside the road."

It wasn't mine.  It's not my style.  I don't leave bags in their yard.

Every day for the next fifty years or so I noticed the bag on the post and said to myself,

"I wonder whose bag that is.  Someone should move it.  And look in it."


But then I stopped noticing the bag.  It became part of the landscape.  A decoration of sorts that seemed at home on the post in the field.  Oh, occasionally I would see it again and say to myself,

"I wonder whose bag that is.  Someone should move it.  And look in it."

Then, one day last week the time was right.  I took a picture of the bag and my conscience would not let me walk away with only a picture.  And, besides, what if there was money in the bag?  And no identification? And the money could be mine!

So, the bag came down.


With the tips of my fingers I carefully opened it, ready to jump away if a snake should come slithering out of the inside pocket.

Here is the inventory of the contents:  Nail polish remover, a Constant Comment tea bag, half of a big silver hair clip, an empty bottle of Estee Lauder Youth Dew lotion, some Mary Kay moisturizer with the end cut off of the container, a hair scrunchie, and a man's sleeveless tshirt.

No snake, no money.

And I think it must have belonged to my mother-in-law. Because it seemed like her type of things and it was in her yard.

Just call me Sherlock Holmes.

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