Last summer my wife, Jess, and I hit Washington D.C. for a little week’s long vacation. Evidently, in junior high, I missed the boat on a school funded trip to our country’s capitol (something about grades, I guess). So now, nearly twenty years later, I decided to fund my own way, with my wife as my travel companion.

It helped that Jess has a cousin in D.C. who works for a congressman on Capitol Hill. She lives in a dizzying high-rise apartment building in the center of Ballston, Virgina (not to be confused with Boston, Massachusettes), a twenty minute Metro jaunt to the Capitol Building. She was nice enough to let us stay with her, and even sectioned off a makeshift bedroom for us in her studio apartment, which involved a curtain and a shower rod wedged between two walls. The light, breezy fabric of the curtain isolated us from the outside world, making it easy to imagine we were enjoying the comfortable quarters of an Arabian sheek.

Washington D.C. was fascinating. I got to see most the sights: the Capitol Builidng, the White House, the Pentagon, the Lincoln Memorial, the place where Forrest Gump and Jenny splashed to each other’s warm embrace in the middle of the Reflecting Pool, the Washington Monument rising majestically in the background. Standing in the exact spot where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had made his famous “I Have A Dream” speech, I aborbed the beautiful landscape of democracy. As a history buff, it was all I had dreamed it would be. But, surprisingly, one sight put itself above all the rest: the D.C. Metro.

I hadn’t spent much time on a real-life subway. Having grown up in a small town, the extent of my experience of public transportation was pretty limited. For the most part, it amounted to nothing more than my buddy driving over to pick me up, or, regarding my earlier years, being packed into a rowdy school bus full of children who, to my endless adolescent torture, played out their impish roles as products of bad parenting. 

As we descended into the deep underground, leaping from one escalator to the next, I half expected to meet up with the earth’s core. Backtracking a few missed turns, we finally stumbled upon out platform, which began to tremble. Two beams of light raced toward us, flooding the dark tunnel encompassing them. Our train screeched to a holt and flung open the doors. A hard light with the same wattage as a bug light burned out my retinas before I noticed that inside was a certain mix of society you don’t see everyday. Besides a federal prison, it was the only place I could imagine where all classes of society are jammed into one place together. Homeless men sat next to big shot lawyers reading the Washington Post. Blue-haired elderly women shared seats with gothic teenagers, clutching their skateboards, packed away into their own little worlds, just them and the tunes pumping from their i-Pods.

I was just starting to get the hang of the Metro, even liking it a bit, when it came to a stop and picked up a rather intimidating man with a physique that could hurt someone, a moustache, a battered army jacket, and a head that was skinned to the quick. He did not sit down but stayed standing, holding on to the rail. “Good morning,” he announced, loud and clear, to two poor teenagers sitting nearby. His articulation was impeccable and fast, like the man on the old 80′s Micro Machines commercial, but with a deeper, richer tone.

His remarkable monologue first began with the Boston Red Sox - this I suppose because the one kid had on a Red Sox hat. He prattled on about a player for “The Sox” a long time ago who was appropriately nicknamed the human vaccuum cleaner, because of his ability to suck up sizzling ground balls from the field. From there, he continued to bounce from story to story, each showing zero relevance to the last, until finally he landed on the dangers of drug abuse. He blamed drugs for his inability to stick to one chain of thought for no longer than ten seconds at a time. I believed him. And Jess did, too, even though neither of us spoke a word about it until the man was off our train and at least two Metro stops behind us. Drugs had messed up his brain, and now he was a living poster child to all teenagers everywhere.

Then, just as quickly as drugs came up, he dropped the subject all together, and began again about ”The Sox”. Then it was drugs again. For his grand finale, he spoke of his faith in Jesus and how, why, just last night, for reasons unknown, he found a loaded gun stuck in his face.

When he finally reached his destination – thank the Lord - he got off, and everyone in our car sighed with relief and searched for someone or something sane to focus on for a bit.

Other than that, the Metro wasn’t such a bad way to get around. However, I did find it tough picturing Abraham Lincoln, back in the day, riding it to work.          

Categories: Travel
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Saturday morning we did not sleep in. Instead, Jess and I headed out to W.A.R.M. (Westerville Area Resource Ministry), where some friends and we had signed up earlier in the month to volunteer for their annual Thanksgiving distribution. W.A.R.M. is a cool little non-profit Christian organization, whose chief objective is to get those in Westerville who’ve had a tough run of circumstances back on their feet.  In an effort to do this, they collect and offer food to those in need (“clients”) and provide all sorts of career, family and Christian counseling. 

Its operations are housed in a low building directly off uptown Westerville’s main drag, tucked away in a small slumbering neighborhood. Through its doors are a handful of counselor rooms, a larger room for holding meetings, a waiting room for clients with appointments, and the inventory room, complete with donated shopping carts and canned and packaged food filed away on shelves in orderly fashion. A recently painted mural by volunteers decorates the back wall where food donations are deposited into a metal drop slot.     

We were assigned our positions beforehand via email, and I was given partial responibility for parking cars. The other parking attendants included my friend, Ben, and a spry older fellow named John, who wore an Ohio State cap and was very glad to meet us. Jess was especially pleased with her lot, for she was handed a camera and instructed to fire snapshots of the event at will. And Kelly, Ben’s pregnant wife, who is due with her second in less than a month, was placed in charge of greeting the clients and handing out pies until they ran out. 

Before the event took off, the staff and volunteers opened with a prayer, which Jess and I gracefully stumbled right into the middle of, because we were late. After the “Amen’s,” the woman in charge ran down the attendance list, and deciding that all but three of us were present, sent us directly to our stations.

 Ben and I were ripped away from our wives, who had long forgotten about us and were eager to get right down to business, and led outdoors to the frigid parking lot. Jess was nice enough to lend me her mittens. Here we were given complete reign over the parking lot, with nothing more than our arms for waving, our fingers for pointing, our mouths for screaming incase we got hit, and the specific instructions to park cars.     

A mother and her daughter were set up at the parking lot entrance for gaining the clients’ attention and to funnel them through to a smiling Ben, who would direct them my way. We stood like a bunch of winding clocks, waving our arm in a circular motion, guiding the general flow of incoming traffic. 

At first, it was widely held that my job was to throw the drivers into utter confusion and to obstruct any of their efforts to get to the W.A.R.M facility before the Ohio State-Michigan noon kick-off. I nearly arranged for a head-on collision between two cars, and, unknowingly, there was a further attempt on my part to lure a woman in a minivan into a defected parking space, containing a nasty looking piece of wood.

“I saw that wood,” said the lady out her minivan window, parking anywhere but the spot I was leading her. Feeling slightly embarrassed, I ran over and moved it to the side.

With time, however, the communication between Ben, John and me improved and it wasn’t long before I felt like I’d been parking cars all my life. “Got one coming your way,” I’d shout to John, confidently.

“Got ’em,” John would say, beaming, his left arm straight out, pointing the way like the North Star, his right bringing the driver home nice and steady. It was just like clockwork. At the bend, Ben was looking quite comfortable, too, and when a homeward bound car tore past him, attacking him with an emphatic ”O-H,” Ben fired back an “I-O” without so much as a hitch in his wind.

The clients were an exceptionally nice group, and almost everyone pulled up wearing Ohio State gear and joyful smiles. When the drivers got out, we’d converse in the universal language of Ohio State football. Then they’d go their way smiling and shouting “Go Bucks,” leaving me to think how great God was for creating sports and food for bringing together people we’d normally never meet.       

After it was all said and done, I’d managed to wolf down a brownie offered to me by the W.A.R.M. staff and a cup of hot coffee. Things got slightly more challenging with a cup of coffee in hand, but by that time, I’d already mastered the art of parking cars one handed.

When 11:00am rolled around, we reconvened back inside where it was warm and listened to some of the stories shared about the day. The strong staff-client relationship was clear. There had been hugs, discussions of blessings, and an exciting annoucement by one lady about landing a steady job.

A good time was had by all, and we were glad we had volunteered.  

Categories: Christianity, Community
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The temperature took a nose dive once the sun fell behind the stadium and the bothered Buckeye’s fans, already squished together from the narrow seating, pressed a little closer for warmth (and in the end, for emotional support). Like Voltron, the stadium fused into a sea of scarlet sweatshirts and jerseys, rushing together our voices (and for many, our curses), to form one massive super fan.  But unlike the giant cartoon robot fashioned from mechanical fighting space cats, we would be unable to save our #1 ranked football team’s undefeated record from utter destruction. 

A frosty light projected onto the Ohio State battle field. Both end zones were meticulously painted movie theatre carpet red. Imitating jack-in-the-boxes, we took turns sitting and standing in order to catch a view over the heads of our fellow fans of the feature film playing before us, which, I might add, was winding down to an increasingly scary ending.

In the meantime, however, we did our part by yelling out the letters of our state at the opposing team. Each of us secretly hoped that this would somehow put a stop to the Fighting Illini’s nasty offensive drives. Like an overly zealous spelling bee, the air quaked with “O-H’s,” and was promptly greeted with ”I-O’s”. Yes, we were more than proud of the fact that we could spell our state’s name. As fans, it was our greatest weapon.

To try the same with our opponent, Illinois, would be just plain silly. The whole sound of it would never do. And, if you’re talking specifics, eight letters go into spelling Illinois to our four. It comes out to be twice the letters. This means two ”O-H-I-O” rounds could easily be fired off to their one. To set a more accurate comparison, this would be like matching a single shot pistol against a semi-automatic. Illinois fans would simply not survive. Besides, by the time it took to get around to uttering the final ”s” to the long-winded state, everyone would be flat out bored.

Once the fourth quarter hit, we all basically watched as the Buckeyes continued to work out their plans to hand over a free trip to New Orleans. Ohio State lost 28 to 21 to what was once considered a mediocre football team. With hanging heads, we all flocked back to our homes wondering why God let Ohio State lose, and trying our best to figure out what went wrong with our Ohio chant. Last Saturday, the world just didn’t make sense.

Categories: Sports
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After racking my brain for the past few days over articles I hope to someday submit to any publisher who is willing, here I am with half-written articles that seem to be going nowhere in particular. So, I’m back at my happy place, where everything I write is published - my blog.

Anyway, it’s been quite a rough work week with deadlines and software hang-ups. Last night, in the office (or rather, my “cubical”, for a more accurate word), I burned the midnight oil until 8pm. I say midnight, because since the time change, the darkest sky that I have ever seen hangs over this city come 5:30pm.

It has already sent me spinning into a mild depression. The hard fluorescent lights at work aren’t doing their job at replacing the sunlight. In fact, I think they’ve aided in producing a clog in my serotonin pump. 

It is my wish that they hurry and put up the Christmas lights, so I can battle these short-day blues with a little Christmas spirit.   

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Wednesday night, Halloween eased into town on a lazy autumn breeze. The temperature outside felt nice, and the air beneath the backlit clouds smelled of dry leaves and pumpkin guts.

 It was perfect weather for wandering the neighborhood in costume, banging on strangers’ doors for sweets. Personally, I think it’s a rather rough ultimatum: trick-or-treat. A tough decision, we opted for the later of the two, and my wife, Jess, and I sat ready with treats to quench the fiery demands of these tiny masked marauders.

We set up camp on the front porch ten minutes early of standard trick-or-treat time (that is 6pm). The Jesus fish pumpkin we’d carved earlier in the week and were quite proud of was lit and hoisted onto the flower stand and positioned just so for the whole world to see.  We sat straight as sticks in our canvas folding chairs, on watch for our first customers. Books sat on reserve beneath our chairs, incase conversation somehow grew stale or the night’s festivities failed to live up to expectations.  A large Tupperware bowl’s worth of candy sat between us.

It was 6:05pm. The wait was eating me alive inside. Just married and new to the neighborhood, it was our first trick-or-treat as hosts. The excitement rushed through my veins like lava. Where is everyone? To pass the time, we fell to discussing such important matters as who’ll be in charge of passing out the candy. ”One per bag” – these instructions were strict but fair. Although, one tiny caped crusader would try for two, only to be denied by his slightly older brother, who, it was clear, was responsible for his little brother’s good conduct.   

My red sponge nose from the Kroger Halloween aisle, together with my painted-up rosy cheeks, now smeared because of an itch, transformed me into a clown. Early on I had trouble keeping my Kroger clown nose on straight, and as time went on, my nose grew extremely warm and sweaty. Jess was a cat, nothing fancy, her face meticulously marked with a set of whiskers and what was meant to be a feline nose. Our otherwise friendly mutt, Phoebe, was herself. Unfortunately, she acted badly and got herself put up early. All the dreadful looking intruders just weren’t sitting well with her and she was only able to cope by growling and barking her head off.      

As the evening light faded, the excitement sort of fizzled out. The first wave of trick-or-treaters was spotted huddled around a door some few houses down. They squealed in delight, wildly exclaiming something about receiving money. Money? Seriously? I didn’t even know money was an option, let alone a treat. What kind of house deals out money on trick-or-treat? Must be the house of a banker. I was about to go over myself and get my hands on some. Our mortgage was due the following day.

Who could live up to the money house? All we had were packs of candy corn with Bible verses printed on the back. I tried to regain my focus: That’s okay, heavenly treasures, right? To pass the time, I read one of the wrappers. Jess and I had been excited at this discovery when we had first stumbled upon them at the local Christian book store. The kids, we knew, would only be in it for the candy, so we had ruled out the possibilty of any shared enthusiasm over a John 3:16 verse. But what the heck.   

Our first trick-or-treaters! They scurried up to our porch, shy faces, eyes down, bags held wide open, mumbling something about treats and tricks. It was obvious for some that this was their first time and they hadn’t quite got the hang of their lines yet. ”And what are you?” I asked one knee-high, little girl.

“A princess?”

“Princess Jasmine?” Jess asked. Jess taught pre-school, and was eager to show-off her knowledge. She knew all the cartoons and toys that were popular with the kids.

“No,” barked the disgruntled princess, “Sleeping Beauty.”

“Darn! I always get the princesses mixed up,” said Jess. I learned that there is a cartoon featuring the Disney princesses that the kids watch. All night, a revolving door of girls under the age of five made bashful appearances  in lacy gowns of all colors. 

Wisening up now, the next little princess who blessed us with her royal presence I guessed to be Jasmine. Her little face lit up. “See,” said her daddy, “He guessed who you are.” I couldn’t help but be awfully proud of myself.

 I also couldn’t help but feel slightly subversive as we slipped God’s Word into each trick-or-treat bag, dangling below either a smiling or frightened face, depending on the age. Parents loitered around the driveway or the sidewalk, checking their watches, waiting for their kid to hurry up and get the candy so they could get on to the next house. If any grabbed candy without verbalizing their appreciation, the parent’s would bark at their child’s lack of manners, and they’d show back up offering a mumbled thanks. Then they’d disappear forever into the deepening night. 

By the night’s end, I was wiped out. I’d seen a lot of princesses and Scream masks – which surprised me, because, didn’t Scream come out over ten years ago? Must still be popular. Anyway, about a quarter till eight, Jess and I broke down camp, blew out the pumpkin and went back inside where Phoebe was whining and wagging her tail to be thrown out into the strange night. We told her no, and just as I thought the night had come to an end, the door bell rang, throwing Phoebe into a blood curdling fit of barks.

 With my foot, I nudged the small dog aside and opened the door to a pink girl no taller than a girl Tom Thumb. She had on one of those stage microphones that rest on your head and free up the hands for dancing. The little girl introduced herself matter-of-factly as Hanna Montana. She had more confidence than any five-year old I’d ever seen, more confidence than me, even. For all I knew, it might have really been her - the real live Hanna Montana on my door step - even though later I had to ask Jess who in the world Hanna Montana actually was. I tossed the girl a pack of Bible candy – a sugary little message from Heaven. She thanked me, then shot off into the dark.

Besides a few stragglers showing up past 8 o’clock, that was it - Jess and mine’s first Trick-or-Treat.  

Categories: Community, Culture
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Sunday afternoon, on our way back from church, Jess and I pulled over at Hoover Dam. She had the digital camera with her and couldn’t pass up the chance for some cool shots of the colorful trees that blazed like fire off the man-made lake.

 Well, her zoom wasn’t quite giving her the winning photos she’d imagined, and the frustration showed on her pretty, little face as she made her way up the incline of the boat ramp.  Over the past few weeks, The Columbus Dispatch has been running a photo contest with weekly winners. Jess is hopeful because the grand prize-winner is awarded the coveted Canon XTi digital camera with 18-55 lens (whatever that means), a retail value of $799.99. Lightening fast, the camera can capture the wings of a hummingbird at a hundred yards. (I might be exaggerating but I’m not sure since I know nothing about cameras.) 

We headed back to the car. Shaking off the last feelings of defeat, Jess mumbled a couple things about being a crumby photographer. We pulled back onto the road for home, but I had other plans. “Where are you going?” Jess asked, when I took a left at The Duke and Dutchess.

“You still want to get some pictures?” I asked. Out of the corner of my eye, I detected her face was glowing, but her response was guarded, like I might be up to something. Another turn took us through the yellow autumn trees and up a windy road that snaked past the frisbee golf course and led behind Hoover Dam itself.

More or less, I was thinking wildlife action shots, maybe a close up of an irritated Alaskan wolf, or, perhaps,  a giraffe, unguarded with her babies drinking from the reservoir. I doubt if Jess was. But given the less than rugged environment of Columbus, Ohio (not counting the Columbus Zoo, of course), the best we’d probably get would be a washed ashore bluegill.

But, no, things went off better than expected. After missing the opportunity to capture an elusive yellow butterfly, we moved on. Jess had her camera out, firing away at the dam and its surroundings, near where the reservoir ended and the dam began. I was lost in a hypnotized world, under the spell of the pressure valve, which  produced a constant blast of lake water out the side of the dam.  

Drifting away, I leaned over the concrete wall that secured us from tumbling below to our watery deaths, turning my attention south to the near-dried up river (the Hoover River?) that once cut through the land, probably when George Washington was president. Almost thirty feet below, perched one-legged on a rock, was our award winning photo, posing for us in a massive heap of beak and feathers. It was a blue heron!   

 The bird looked so majestic and graceful among its brushy and still-water environs. Then again, it wasn’t so hard to imagine the 4 foot tall bird somehow getting ticked off and carrying one of us off forever in its giant beak. Either way, National Geographic was written all over it. Jess leaned over with her camera and did her best from an aerial view. “We’re up too high,” she said, followed by, “I’m just no good at this.”

But I wasn’t about to let her give up. “Let’s go down there,” I said.

“Way down there?”

“Yeah, down there.”

“We’ll get in trouble,” Jess said. “We’re not supposed to be down there. They’ll give us a ticket.”

Well, that was a risk we’d just have to take if we wanted to roll with the big-timers. Besides, my adventurous mood may have slightly clouded my senses. But I wasn’t about to admit that.

Searching for a way down, Jess followed closely behind with stories of people she knew or of those who someone else knew who had experienced the rigid Hoover Dam authority for straying off the park’s marked path. I didn’t see any prohibiting signs, and even if I did, I was on an anti-establishment high at the moment. It was in the name of art. Tell that to the judge.

 I grinned at this thought as Jess and I stumbled and slid down a near 90 degree slope of loose rock, briers and wild animal dung. Watch your step.

 ”Joe! Wait up.” O, yeah – Jess. I gave her my hand. “I don’t have the right shoes for this,” she said.

Jess had on a pair of imitation Native American moccasins. Once fashioned in the latest durable deer or bear hide style by careful, knowing hands, the ancient foot covering is now produced from flimsy synthetic fibers and thrown together by a brainless factory machine. They looked nice; she felt every pebble.

But I didn’t let on about this. ”Sure you do. They’re perfect. You have on the same shoes the Indians wore,” I said.

Finally, we reached the bottom. Waiting for us was another cleverly placed heap of animal dung, a little trap set by a raccoon or a feral cat with intestinal problems, no doubt. And it became obvious that some animals were down here making sandwiches before we arrived, because stuck in the bushes was a half loaf of Wonder Bread. 

“Is it still there?” Jess inquired about the bird. “Because if it’s not…”

“There it is,” I said quietly, not to scare it off or get it angry at us. We were completely vulnerable. There was no where to run. We stepped cautiously toward the heron, over the long grass and onto the rocks poking through the water. Immediately, I thought this could be a good home for water snakes, but I kept this to myself.

The bird was still a good 30 feet away, but this time Jess had a better angle at it. She snapped a couple shots, moving closer and closer to it each time, before we saw that the bird was missing a foot. It couldn’t stand on two legs even if it wanted to. Poor bird.     

Pictures of how this may have happened flashed in my mind. Was it a bird fight? Did a bear catch it with a claw in mid-flight? Somewhere between these questions I lost interest. Sadly, I knew, that in a cold, vain world where malnourished clothing store mannequins shout to women from their store front windows, ”There is no room for physical imperfection,” that there was little hope for the acceptance of a one-footed bird. Not in this world.

 ”Are you ready?” I asked.

“Yeah, let’s go,” said Jess.

We clambered back up the slope, more difficult now. After spotting a park ranger truck creeping past overhead, a shot of adrenaline helped us pick up the pace. Once at the top, another set of steep stairs that ascended to the top of the dam waited for us. The ranger was no where in sight. We’d given him the slip. And the taste of forbidden fruit tasted so sweet. 

Huffing and puffing up the steps in the afternoon sun, I felt sad that Jess didn’t quite get the pictures she’d wanted. Then my mind drifted back to the bird, and I couldn’t help but wonder if it had been shunned by its circle of bird friends due to its missing foot. I doubt it. What does a bird know? Two feet or one, their tiny bird brains probably don’t even know the difference.

I turned to Jess, “So what do you want to do for lunch?” 

Categories: Nature, Photography, Xtreme
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Jess’ Italiano Kitchen is getting rave reviews. That’s the word on the streets, anyway. Last night I felt was as good of a night as any to try it out. Once through the door of the quaint establishment, complete with yellow painted walls, reminding one of the sunshine hue of the lush beaches of Sicily, and a brunette Italian bombshell of a chef with hair as brown and rich as a cup of premium coffee, my nostrils were hit with the bewitching aroma of herbs and tomato sauce.

Lured to the table by the heavenly scent, I found a breath-taking arrangement of pasta shells stuffed with spinach, ricotta cheese and ground turkey, bathed in a blush alfredo sauce, set before me. I took a bite. Packed with Italian goodness and flavor, my taste buds screamed for more, as they notified my brain of the exquisite variety of ethnic delight swimming inside my mouth.

It was the best thing I had ever tasted. Afterwards, I kissed my wife and thanked her for cooking such an excellent dinner. Oh yeah, and the price was reasonable too. 5 stars!

Categories: Food
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This is my new and improved blog. Feast your eyes…

Categories: Uncategorized
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It was a rotten feeling sitting there in the quiet dark of the morning, listening to the distant grind of the garbage truck making its rounds through our neighborhood. Yes, I forgot to put the trash out last night. And this morning, I sat at the kitchen table in the hard glow of the stove light helpless to do anything, hopelessly alone, just me and the approaching sound of the garbage truck as it neared the curb in front of my house. The empty curb, garbagecanless.

The problem was that the bulky, green garbage can supplied by the city sat in the corner of our garage, pinned in by my car. Somehow I had lost my own car keys in the midst of running errands last night in Jess’ car. For no good reason, I had instinctly brought them along. I remembered absently pulling them out of my flimsy jacket pocket at one point in the evening in the Target parking lot, thinking, I better not lose these. I must admit, that was very good advice to myself, but that was as far as it went, because I did just that: I lost them.

So as I sat there listening to the creaturely sounds of the garbage truck’s mechanical arm reaching down for my neighbor’s trashcan, I did my best to tune out the thoughts that my trashcan could have been next, if I wasn’t so stupid. Instead, I concentrated on that which lay in front of me: The Book of Ecclesiastes. Suddenly, for some reason, all the torture and trouble I was presently experiencing over my car keys felt so meaningless. It didn’t matter if I found my car keys and got my trash out on time or not. I was still ultimately destined for the grave, just the same as the guy who had his car keys and was on top of trashday.

When it was time for Jess to wake up, I reported to her that I had made the executive decision to leave the materials in our trashcan to mature an extra week. Then I told her the truth. “Well, won’t that pose a problem for getting to work this morning?” she asked about my car keys.

After reviewing all the facts (Until then, I hadn’t got much further than being upset over not getting the trash out), I said, “Well, actually, yes. Yes it will pose a problem.” So I made one last ditch effort to scan the house. After almost giving up in utter despair, I decided to include God on this, even though I felt it was such a trivial thing to pray about misplaced car keys. But, as I’m slowly learning, God does care about little things like these. Funny, I was just placing the period at the end of my prayer request when, lo and behold, my car keys were staring me right in the face. They were in the seat crack in Jess’ car, right where I’d been sitting.

Categories: Life
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There is a dusty black suitcase in the unfinished part of our basement, left behind by the last owner of the house. It is bulky, like it may contain something heavy…or expensive. At first, I wasn’t drawn to it much. It seemed a trivial thing among the chaos of moving in. But now that things have settled down, my curiosity is on the rise. Many times I have considered unzipping the filthy thing for a look inside. For all I know, it could be bursting at the seams with gold bullion from an old train robbery. On the other hand, and this to me is much more likely, it could be packed with angry vipers. So a part of me – the scared part – wants to grab it by the handle and run with it full speed out the front door and throw it as far from our house as possible. But then again, what if it really is gold? Or priceless antiques? Sadly, I may never know.

Categories: Mystery
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