On Monday I went to the Exchange - that's the Swap Shop down at the dump to see if there were any leftover leavings from weekend yard sales. To suppliment my DI income I've been selling on e-Bay again. Saturday is always a wild scene at the Exchange, because when people have left over stuff from their yard sales that's where a lot of it ends up, and people like me know it. The Exchange and the dump close at 3:00 though, so at 2:30 it's when worlds collide. Nevermind worlds, vehicles have had plenty of near misses up there too. Yuppies meet the Down-But-Not-Out, Gym Fit Moms meet Mom's Who Ate Yesterday (so their kids could eat today) People Who Don't Know What They Have meet People Who Know the Price of Everything (i.e. Dealers like me) While others Who Know the Value of Nothing meet those few serene few Who Only Value Contentment and/or Freedom. It's always quite a mix.

I'm not up to all that socio-economic drama every Saturday, though, and sometimes it's better to go on Monday anyway, because those that didn't get the car loaded in time on Saturday often meet only the more calm elderly and disabled crowd. On Mondays no one is as likely to get accidentally hit in the head with a pair of skis.

Anyway, I found a perfectly good teddy bear with a yard sale tag still attached, some vintage wall hangings for a childs room and some Fisher Price stuff which I think I can sell on e-Bay.Often I find good books there, so I always look. While I was looking at a pile of books (alas, it was only a dead encyclopedia set from 1974) an elderly man came over to me. He said, "You know, I was here last week and some guy found a beat up Bible over here so he started paging through it. And you know he found three one hundred dollar bills in there - brand new!"

Weirdly, my first thought was that someone's spouse had been hiding money for the family vacation when Mr or Mrs Throws Everything Away had carted the whole kit and kaboodle off to the Exchange and had a crisis of conscience about throwing The Good Book in the dump.

It was only after I got home that I realized that this was supposed to be a morality tale,since, upon further reflection, it struck me that this is probably an urban myth, similar to the whole $100 bills in the Gideon's Bibles in hotel rooms thing. Then it made me wonder if I looked like someone who needed to be told to read the Bible more. (Though, upon further reflection on THAT point, I probably should)

Also, it was too late for me to ask the man, "So, did the guy take the Bible and the $300? Or just the $300?"