Treasure To Trash

Ann: My aunt just called. She’s pretty upset. She just found out something that’s nearly put her into shock.

Pam: This sounds like a juicy one…tell me.

Ann: You know my aunt loves garage and estate sales. She hits the door at six in the morning with the local ads in one hand and a map in the other. She considers it a treasure hunt.

Pam: So she’s the one who always gets there Friday morning and buys up all the old paintings with an original copy of the US Constitution hidden in the frame, isn’t she?

Ann: That’s her.

Pam: Thanks to her, all I can find is mismatched Tupperware and broken ashtrays by the time I get out there on Saturday at lunchtime.

Ann: Well a couple of years ago she found a treasure she was so proud of. She was the first customer at an estate sale in the older, historic area of town. She spotted this beautiful, very unusual ceramic vase with a little top. She was tickled that the price tag said only twenty dollars and then she was still able to talk the guy down to just eighteen.

Pam: I’m surprised he budged on the price that early in the day.

Ann: Me too. So she drove around town with it while she hit the other sales and when she got home she realized it had tipped over in the back floorboard of her car. There was some old, musty potpourri in it so she took it out back and dumped it in her garden. Then she washed out the vase and vacuumed up the carpet in the car.

Pam: So where’d she put her new prized procession?

Ann: Right in the middle of the dining table. Over the past several years, every time she’d have a fancy dinner she’d use it as a centerpiece with the flowers of the season arranged in it. Then we’d all have to hear the story again about how she made this terrific find.

Pam: She’s a repeater, huh?

Ann: Yeah, she is. Well the last time we were there, my cousin who always suspected the vase was just a Wal-Mart special, cruelly suggested she have it appraised. He was sick of hearing the story of her big estate sale discovery and knew she’d never tell it again when she found out the vase was worthless. He convinced her to have it checked out by telling her she may need to increase her homeowner’s insurance to cover such a valuable piece.

Pam: Don’t tell me…she took it in and got her heart broken by some Antiques Roadshow ceramics snob telling her it wasn’t worth a dime.

Ann: Worse! When the guy turned it over to check the maker’s mark on the bottom he discovered a name and two dates instead. It turns out it was an urn!

Pam: You’ve got to be kidding! Didn’t you say it came with potpourri in it? Who on earth would put potpourri in an urn?

Ann: That’s the funny part. It wasn’t potpourri Thinking back, my aunt realized that what she thought was old musty potpourri was actually ashes. She’d dumped the remains of poor Harold L. Meggitt under the bushes in her back yard.

Pam: What’s even creepier is that you guys had all those dinners with that poor man’s urn as the centerpiece!


Ann: My aunt is so upset she’s beside herself. She told the appraiser to keep the urn, went home, threw away the hand vacuum she’d used to clean the carpet, and now she says she wants to sell her car!

Pam: Well if she had found out sooner she could have saved the ashes and made them into a real treasure. You know they take the ashes from human cremation and make them into diamonds now.

Ann: Oh please!

Pam: I’m serious. They take the ashes of your family member or pet and they put them under high pressure and turn them into gem stones. If your aunt had done that she’d have that treasure she was looking for.

Ann: You aren’t serious….they actually make jewelry out of your loved one? It’s an intriguing thought but I’m not sure how I feel about the idea.

Pam: Well, as the saying goes, a diamond is forever.

Ann: What ever happened to ‘death do us part’?

(For those of you who find this unbelievable, click on the photo below!)