Uncategorized 21 Jun 2005 10:12 pm
in which I find some lost pretties
I earned my merit badge in resisting temptation today.
Our elderly next-door neighbor’s memory has been failing her rather seriously, and she’s gone to Alaska to live with her daughter. Her friends were here day in and day out for months trying to get her stuff sorted and packed. Then a screeching pack of her awful relatives came by and stripped the place of pretty much anything saleable.
Our neighbor has been upset because she couldn’t remember where she put her family’s heirloom gold pocketwatch and engagement rings. She told her friends that she’d hidden it somewhere in the house or buried it in the backyard under a rock. They looked and looked. No doubt the screech brigade also looked and looked. It seemed like the heirlooms were destined to be sold with the house.
Josh and I were given a few things — all the canning jars we can shake a stick at, for one — and to express my thanks I volunteered to help get some stuff out of the attic and to the Sharehouse. While I was up there, I noticed an old wooden box.
“If I were hiding something,” I thought, “I’d put it under there.” And there was the cache: a beautiful old gold pocketwatch, a heavy wedding ring, engagement rings, all sorts of things. Apparently I have a knack for thinking like a worried, frazzle-witted old lady. Who would have imagined?
So, family heirlooms go to the family, and I feel smart and lucky.
on 22 Jun 2005 at 4:04 am 1.Karlos said …
So the stuff was hidden under the box, but not inside of it? Hiding things *under* a box seems weird to me. Huh.
on 22 Jun 2005 at 9:54 am 2.Cam Sculpin said …
The box didn’t have a top. It was turned upside down to make a step between the two levels of the attic. It hardly registered as a box at all, really, until you took a good look at it; its wood was the same color as the wood of the attic floors. When I tipped it up, there was the stuff.
So it seemed more “under” than “in” to me. And Evelyn’s story about burying things under a rock made me wonder if she might have gotten the “under” part right.
on 22 Jun 2005 at 2:33 pm 3.Joy said …
Huzzah for you! Finding something like that is the best feeling - even better because you saved the stuff from the screechers.
You rock!
on 22 Jun 2005 at 3:02 pm 4.Cam Sculpin said …
Thanks!
The screechers will probably wind up with much of it eventually, but at least our neighbor will get to choose.
on 22 Jun 2005 at 3:21 pm 5.Karlos said …
I get it now. Yes, under more than in. Cool.
on 18 Dec 2005 at 8:35 am 6.Engagement Rings said …
Kudos to you! Your elderly neighbor has a good friend. Good Guys 1, Screechers 0.