Not counting the things that looked like mushed M&M's or maybe some cushion-dried salsa chunks, the best I've ever done is a couple of hard-shell taco divots, a remote control for an oscillating fan, enough unpopped popcorn kernels for a hamster's tea break, a ripped bus transfer, half a poker chip, a pizza crust that could double as a drywall hammer, two wallet-pocket buttons, the keeper-part of ticket stub for a 1993 charity auction, and a dollar-seventeen in change.
Talk about being outclassed. Three roommates in northern New York state found $40,000 in their couch. The one they bought. Second-hand. For twenty bucks.
It was a major oops. The daughter sold it, when her mom was in the hospital for a surgery. But, it all got straightened out. The roommates tracked down the original owner somehow, maybe through the charity shop that had sold them the couch, and then, the original owner and the original cash were all restored to original condition. And they all lived originally, and happily, ever after.
Yes: Good works were done, a smidge of confidence was restored to the bucket of human nature, and the roommates received a thousand bucks for their effort -- a profit of $980, one could say, providing one wanted to focus on the upsides here.
It's heartening to have news that helps buoy the heart in these storm-ravaged times, or some equally reaching, preachy stuff. Yes, it's good news, happy news, uplifting news, and all that -- but the timing is crap.
See: I had just started to formulate an hypothesis I'd been mulling over, based on decades of anecdotal nature and stinging personal experience. The formula went roughly like this: As time goes on, here in America, people are becoming less patient and more selfish. Less considerate and more self-centered. Less authentic, more artificial -- and in that sticky, clinging, clammy sensibility once referred to by some as Preppie Yuppie Zombie Puppies.
(Granted, not many did, not outside my crayon-based therapy group, but, still...)
On Monday, August 6, 1945, after six months of intense firebombing of 67 other Japanese cities,...
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