Wednesday, December 12, 2012

December 12 – “Couch excavations reveal incredible find”


We faced another interesting dilemma in the saga of living with an elderly parent.  Mom lost her only remaining hearing aid.  One of them stopped working a while back, but she was doing fine with just the one, so we have postponed getting it fixed.  That would mean taking her on a trip up into Texas since her doctor is in Houston.  But then the last one came up missing.  It is impossible to tell when or where exactly she might have lost it, since her communication skills have diminished quite a bit.  Our only recourse is to do what we did yesterday – have a scavenger hunt.  Let me say up front that we weren’t successful.  Well, not in that we did not find the hearing aid.  Some good did come out of the whole search and rescue operation, though.  The rugs got vacuumed.  That’ll help Chris prepare for our Christmas Party tomorrow night.  I was most excited about the finds hidden deep inside the hungry crevices of the couch.  One of the boys has borrowed our wet/dry vac, so I decided to dig in and do it the old fashioned way. 

I rolled up my proverbial sleeves and bravely crammed my arm blindly into the abyss, heedless of any hidden dangers.  My first foray provided pretty much what I expected, some stale Cheetos and a raisin.  At least it proved that whatever might be trapped down there could indeed be brought to the surface.  My arm disappeared to the elbow for long moments each time, and each time it brought back something.  A tiny Lego man’s head.  A Lego spear.  A Lego quiver of arrows.  An entire Lego man.  Are you sensing a pattern here?  Obviously I had stumbled upon the Legendary Lego Land of the Lost.  Being the careful archaeologist that I am, I determined to fully excavate this find and bring to light its true story.  More Cheetos.  Piles and piles of lint.  Globs of … what was that stuff?  Sadly, I was operating without the benefits of modern technology, so some potentially exciting finds had to remain a mystery.  Then came … a quarter.  Treasure.  I had read about such finds, but rarely have I personally experienced one.  Then a dime.  And a penny.  Another penny.  Thirty-seven cents in all.  What a find.  Why, that could buy … a tenth of a gallon of gas.  OK, so not that much, but every little bit helps, I guess.  The find of the day, though, came when I uncovered what appeared to be a wristwatch.  Yes, after carefully removing all the debris, there it was.  An actual wrist watch.  But not just any old wristwatch.  No, indeed.  For this watch was inscribed within.  It wasn’t the writing that caught my eye so much as the image.  I carefully examined it, and to my surprise, there on the face of the watch was a picture of … could that be … Lego C3PO?  And the words … Lego (I could have guessed that).  And sure enough … Star Wars.  What a find.  After consulting with my esteemed colleague (Chris), I decided that there was only one person on the planet who could fully appreciate the gravity of this particular find … Professor Zakary of the San Antonio Institute of Lego Culture and Creativity.  I have heard he has moved on to a new area of expertise – Hobbitus Extremitus – but perhaps he will still be interested enough to join me in studying this remarkable find.  Now, how shall I go about contacting him …?

Psalms 46:10 says, “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”

Father, we could sure use some help uncovering the hiding place of that hearing aid.  Amen.

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