Get Rich Quick is Egg-agerated

Before I get into this new post let me just say, I was so excited to see there was "a comment that needed to be moderated" on my blog. In other words, somebody was following me and made a comment. Alas! My elation was short-lived. It turned out to be a Viagra ad. Again. I am SO SICK of seeing Viagra and other limp dick remedy ads everywhere I turn. Jesus! Is there a pandemic of flacidity (my word) going on? I've been dying to use the word "pandemic" ever since I heard it in reference to the swine flu - I'm so happy I got my big chance - and then to couple it with a made-up derivative of the word "flacid" - well it just doesn't get any better. When you write - these things matter. Okay, shriveled pee-pees aside, here's what's new.

So yesterday I go to the thrifty (which is what I call any thrift shop) with my Mummy. (Not the mummy I have in storage in the sarcophagus - but the one that gave birth to me). So we're shoppin' around and pickin' up more shit we don't need and some we do - when Mummy holds up this psuedo-cloisonné egg. Now, cloisonné, in case you're not familiar, is basically enamel with gold or silver metal soldered or glued on it. You'd know it if you saw it. It's ok - not one of my favorite artistic techniques. Anyway - so my Mum holds up this cheaply made cloisonné-looking egg and announces, with a sly wink and a grin, that's she's found a Fabergé egg. Imagine that! Then she looks quickly around to make sure nobody heard her and may suddenly point out this costly mistake to the owner of the store. I zoom in on the thing. It has a small piece of masking tape around it that says "$3.00." The egg has a metal hole at the bottom (possibly where it once was on a stand at the Dollar Store?) and poorly administered enamel with equally inferior gold wiring running over it. I mean, it wasn't the worst workmanship of cloisonné I ever saw, but - no it was the worst.

"It's not a Fabergé egg," I tell her.
"How do you know? Lots of things are found at flea markets and thrift stores that people don't know their worth. I think it's real."
"It's not a Fabergé egg," I tell her.
"It could be - you don't know."
"It's not a Fabergé egg," I tell her.
"You don't know that!"
"It's not a Fabergé egg," I tell her.

Still, she's insistent. I know she's thinking: I'll show her! I'll pay three dollars for this - get it appraised at Lloyd's of London or the Antiques Road Show - find out it's worth hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars and my smart aleck daughter will be eating her words.

"I know what you're thinking," I tell her. "You're going to prove me wrong."
"Hmph! We'll see who has the last laugh."
"It's not a Fabergé egg," I tell her.

There is a thread that runs through my family. Although we all work hard, and none of us are lazy, we all have the "get rich quick scheme" gene. Myself included. I've tried all sorts of stuff to get rich: electrolysis, a men's hair growth product, eBay. And I'm sure I'm not done. So I understand where my mother's coming from. She can't help it. She believes that it COULD be possible that the owners of the thrift store somehow let a genuine Fabergé egg slip through their fingers and subsequently affixed a $3 price tag on it and then, somehow, through the grace of God, my mother was the ONLY person of all the people who saw this egg -the only person who realized the faux pas and was now to capitalize on it!

The whole way home in the car, she kept giving me a smug, we'll see who's right! look.

Well, of course it wasn't a Fabergé egg. But really, who cares? If it gives you joy - does it matter if it's "real"? Yeah, of course it does! No corny ending here. I'd kill to find a real Fabergé egg in a thrift store. I'd take the next few years off! But this wasn't it.

Who knows - maybe one day my Mum or I will get lucky and find an undetected treasure - a forgotton Renoir in the back of a ugly watercolor painting - or a real diamond ring in the costume jewelry bin - but until then - can you really make $100 an hour working from home answering surveys on the Internet? It could be possible ... right?