Saturday Ordinaire

Nothing extraordinary had ever happened to me. In fact, I had always been an ordinary person and I’d been perfectly fine with that. Or so I thought. Everything changed on seemingly unremarkable Saturday morning.

I was blow drying my wild bushy hair and getting pissed off; hot and exhausted by the task at hand. As I’m doing this, the only picture I own of my late father stared at me from a bookshelf. I caught his eye through the mess of hair in my face I shouted “What! What! Are you here now?” I don’t know why but I had almost expected him to answer back. My father had a habit of making his presence known from time to time and I always knew when he was listening.

“Okay smart guy, I know you’re here. Come on give me a sign – I dare you!” I yelled, half laughing at my own foolishness. I felt crazy. I wanted this hair ordeal to end and go on with my big day. A church yard sale. Believe it or not, this was going to be the actual highlight of my day. I said goodbye to my the smirking image of my father, grabbed my oversized coffee and left my house; not giving a second thought to the feeling

The church was in a few towns over and in just one short forty-three minute drive I found myself navigating an overstuffed cardboard box labyrinth that had once been a parking lot. The deal was simple: five dollars bought you the opportunity to fill a plain grocery bag to the brim. I handed the lady a crumpled twenty dollar bill and it was off to the races.

I rummaged and schlepped through the boxes in a frenzied pace filling up all four of my brown paper bags. I left that parking lot a victorious woman with three straw hats stacked on top of my head, two scarfs around my neck and the four bags, which were now ripping apart in my arms. I was ready to go home, dump out my crumbling bags of treasure and revel in my scavenging success. do was go home, dump the ripped bags on the living room floor and go through my treasure.

Once on the floor, I started to rifle through the pile of goodies. It was a total blown up mess of stuff. I scored. I was psyched. In the middle of the pile I saw a small leather book with gold lettering. It was titled, “Little Black Book”. At first, I thought it might be some player boy’s address book, but all it had was lined notebook paper in it. It was in surprisingly good condition. As I thumbed through the pages, I noticed there was writing in the middle of it. It said, “From someone no longer here, who was old and wise, this little black book was meant for your eyes. You have been chosen by good fortune and fate to pay forward goodness that will await. Gift half to you and pay forward to two. Doing the right thing will be up to you. Blydenburg’s path 70 feet, under a green rock you will meet.”

This was weird. An eccentric dead person leaves money somewhere buried under a green rock? This is crazy. No one leaves money like this. It couldn’t be an old dead person because how can they walk 70 feet down a path and then move a big green rock, dig a hole an bury money. No, it doesn’t make sense. Maybe it wasn’t an old person, but someone not as old who knew they were going to die and wanted to do something absolutely wonderful for a stranger. Maybe it’s a really bad joke and this person has a sick sense of humor. Why am I being cynical? Stop it. Stop it. Could it be jewelry? Nah, it’s money? It has to be. Good fortune? Gift half to you? Paying it forward? T. This has to be a real thing. I wanted this to be real. No, I needed this to be real.

Still sitting in the middle of the living room floor still surround by ripped brown paper bags and my treasure, I lit a cigarette and grabbed my coffee. This can’t be real. I turned on the radio to calm down and think. My father’s song “Sunny” comes on. I start crying. The son of a bitch is giving me a sign. This was real. Things like this do not happen to people like me – they just didn’t. “Okay buck up. You have nothing to lose by going on a little road trip to Blydenburg Park.”

It’s only two in the afternoon and what’s the worst thing that can happen – you got fooled by a ghost? I left the pile in the living room with my little dog and started off to Blydenberg Park. It was really beautiful out that day and when I pulled into the parking lot of the park, it was fairly crowded. Oh shit. I felt paranoid. I must have had a weird face on as I walked along the path counting out 70 steps with a little hand shovel in the back pocket of my overalls. I felt sick. I had to pee. I needed water. I cant’t breathe. When I got to the 70th step I stopped. I kept thinking of the “Big W” in “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World”. It didn’t say left or right. It didn’t say anything about a tree or a bench or a stump. Under a green rock.

Where’s the freaking green rock? I regrouped and decided to do a six foot perimeter to the left side of the path and one to the right. Though my first instinct was to start on the right, I started on the left looking for the green rock. The Powers that be had mercy on my neurosis, because I found the green rounded square rock by a tree five feet off the path to the left. It was the only one. It was hiding on the side of the tree facing into the woods. Unless you had an inkling of it’s existence, you would never even see it. I felt like fainting. I moved the green rock and took my little shovel out of my back pocket and started digging, while trying to look inconspicuous. About a foot down, I felt something I thought maybe a root. It was a tin antique watch box. The sight of it made me dizzy. I grabbed the box and put it in my overall front pocket, covered the hole, put back the rock and ran like a maniac to my car. As I ran back up the path and through the parking lot to my car, I must have looked like a deranged sweating, panting animal.

I got into my car, opened the box and there it was – money. Money, money, money money!!! It’s really real!! Count it!! Count it!! There were crisp $100.00 bills. There were actually 200 crisp $100.00 bills!! $20,000.00!!! Here I am sitting in my sitting in my disgustingly messy crappy car hysterically laughing with $20,000.00 in my lap. I have to get home. I have to get home. I have to hide my money. I have to hide my money.

The secret squirrel in me kicked in an I drove home in a laser focused trance. I went to work the following Monday with a spring in my step and twenty grand in my pocketbook. I wouldn’t leave it out of my sight. Two weeks passed, since I found the little black book and the money. I haven’t told a single person about it – nobody (except my little dog Sammy). To be honest, I had a little devil on my shoulder saying to keep it all, but I just kept reading the poem in the little black book and I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t honor this angel of a person’s wishes. I started buying the local paper and within the next two weeks I read about two families who on two separate occasion were hit by some sort of hardship. I reached out as an anonymous benefactor to both these families and gave them both $5,000.00 in their time of need. As for myself, I bought a piano for my living room, got music lessons and paid some bills. Forget what I said before, being ordinary is overrated.