Annual treasure hunt pockets wonders, mysteries, stale candy bars
By Burton W. Cole, Columnist
The thermometer outside our frosted kitchen window curled into a shivering ball. I smiled.
“It's time.”
A walking bundle of laundry trundled into the kitchen. From somewhere deep inside the layers of sweatshirts, long johns, mittens and knit hats, my wife's voice puffed, “For what? To finally turn up the thermostat?”
“Better than that,” I said. “The annual treasure hunt is about to begin.”
The walking bundle waddled away. “You dig for gold; I'm burrowing under the covers. Let me know when the dishwater thaws.”
I reached for my winter coat. A warmth spread over me as I shrugged into it — not because of the insulated lining. Oh, no. It was because of all the pockets. The first cold snap of every season becomes a celebration of pockets — and discovering what treasures lay buried in them all spring, summer and fall.
I dug into the front right pocket. “Whoa, half a Snickers bar. I wonder if it's any good.”
It was. A little tough but still good.
The left right pocket carried a nail and three Phillips head screws. “So that's why the table fell apart.”
Next, I jingled out four pennies and a nickel. One year I came up with a five-dollar bill. This year, I excavated a crumpled note that read, “4:30 p.m. Thursday. Don't forget.”
I hope I hadn't. There was that time that Terry walked home in the snow but wouldn't tell me why. That day turned even frostier than this one. I wonder...
Nah, couldn't be. Back to the treasure hunt.
One of the sleeve pockets contained a canister of 35mm film I've been meaning to have developed since 1998. An inside pocket held a credit card I'd reported stolen.
I found a Tupperware container that my wife insisted I must have lost. This proved that I hadn't. I planned to slip the Tupperware into one of her pockets first chance I got — after cleaning out whatever the fuzzy thing inside of it was.
The treasure hunt through my winter coat pockets yielded other wonderful finds: the spare keys to the car we sold in April; a flash drive that might be blank or might contain state secrets; a paperback with a candy wrapper marking my place in Chapter 6; a mismatched pair of gloves — one puffy and blue and one thin and black; a dozen receipts dating back to 2015 that promised a free burger if I filled out the survey within 30 days of my visit; spare socks; a hair scrunchy (why?); seven ink pens, three of which work; coupons to a store that went out of business five years ago; three wadded-up plastic bags tangled in a blue rubber band (see note on hair scrunchy); and a scuffed baseball to remind me that spring is on the way.
I don’t wear a coat so much as a general store. Pretty much, my pockets were loaded with everything except a winter hat. No room in the inn. I pulled a pad from my shirt pocket and fished a marker from behind the cellphone in my pants pocket and made a note: “Buy cargo pants. Need more pockets.”
From the bedroom, the walking bundle of laundry puffed: “If you don't turn up the heat, I'll need a pick to claw my way out of this iceberg.”
“No problem, Sweetie.” I reached into my back coat pocket. “Do you want the ice pick with a blue handle or brown?”
She warmed up the room quickly with a flurry of blistering comments, none of which were safe to carry in any of my pockets. They'd melt.
Go on a treasure hunt for Cole at burton.w.cole@gmail.com or at www.burtonwcole.com.