In The Brown Bag

The hope was to find a bag of money.  Some children dream of becoming astronauts, some of firemen, some of ballerinas.  Often, the jobs available to us as children are limited to the jobs we are introduced to on Sesame Street.  Some kids branch out from the options of police officer, teacher, and mailman to more fantastical occupations such as monster, princess, or wizard.

I bought into the more conservative path of future possibilities and wanted to be an astronaut for a bit.  Then I wanted to be a professional baseball player.  Then, a teacher of American history who also coached the basketball team.  Then, an actor.  And that's what I earned a degree in.  Acting.

After college, when the luster of acting wore off (and the reality of the business set in), I wanted to be a musician.  Then a writer.  An artist.  Maybe all of the above.  Currently, I'd like to just be able to pay rent.

But stronger than my desire to make a living off of any of these options was my desire to find a bag of money.

I've always loved treasure.  The idea of finding treasure is incredibly appealing to me and I'm not quite sure why.  The height of this desire was reached between 2008 and 2010 when I would go on change hunts through the streets of Chicago.  I would record how much change I would find, how many pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, dollar coins, dollar bills, and those wonderful rare times I would find five, ten, and twenty dollar bills.  Each time I found a penny or a twenty, it was like some wonderful discovery in the greatest Easter Egg Hunt of all time.  I would check the parking meters and would frequently find ten to twenty quarters at once inside of the change dispenser.  There was a stretch where I found five twenty dollar bills, one each in March, April, May, June, and July.  When my change hunts came to an abrupt ending in August of 2010, I was finding between $80 and $100 a month.  It was incredible.

But I still never found that one brown paper sack filled with money.  The one with rolls and rolls, or stacks and stacks, of $100 bills.  My attention would perk up in an alley when I saw an old brown bag leaning against a dumpster.  Could this be it?  Nope...greasy paper towels and banana peels.  Here, on the sidewalk?  Nope...left over and forgotten Chinese food.

Once, when walking through Graceland Cemetery, I saw a brown paper bag packed with some sort of mystery.  This must be it!  My bag of money!  I walked towards the bag carefully, knelt down, and cautiously opened it up.  I found cloth...ribbons of cloth, scarves, perhaps.  And candles.  And then something that looked a little bit like meat.

Being careful not to touch it and now assuming the worst, I was able, with the aid of a stick that had fallen from a nearby winter tree, to see that what I was looking at was a dead, plucked chicken.  Head, wings, feet, everything intact.

I closed up the paper sack and brought it to the front building.  I went inside and said, "excuse me, but I found this brown paper bag out there with scarves, candles, and a dead chicken in it."

I expected the reaction to be shock or surprise, but without even looking at me, a man behind a counter said, "oh it's those Voodoo people again...just leave it on the table."

What is it about an anonymous paper bag that I love so much?  I acknowledge that a big part of it is the mystery of what could be inside...by why does my treasure lie within such a plain and common container?  My vision isn't of a treasure chest or an old tin box with valuables inside, though those are appealing visions in their own right.  My ideal transportation for my treasure is an old, greasy, forgotten brown paper bag.  Probably in the woods or in the park or cemetery someplace.

So while I continue to search for my disgusting bag treasure in the literal world, I'll attempt to fill up this literary brown bag with stories of treasure, of magic, and of discovery.  Strange things seem to happen to me and it's time I started writing them down and sharing them with the world.

And perhaps you too are searching for an old sack of treasure.  If I may be so bold, and if it doesn't sound too incredibly corny, maybe you've got my treasure sack and I've got yours.

On second thought, that doesn't sound corny.  It sounds dirty.

Thanks for reading.  Have a great day and I'll talk to you later.