When Having OCD Pays Off

To all my friends who kid me about being just a tad obsessive compulsive–read this and weep!!

There I am, taping up the last of the boxes at the house, when I’m looking at the contents of the box. It’s some of my husband’s old baseball memorabilia — some old baseball watches, team pins from when he was with the Blue Jays and the Marlins. And crap. Lots of crap.

The reason why I’m starting to get pissed off is because he’s been gettin’ on me about all the “crap” I’m choosing to keep in storage. So I’m looking at this worthless stuff and wondering if I’ve got some “ammo” here that I can use in some future argument.

But to be a true argument warrior, I must possess all knowledge of all transgressions. Therefore I kept a special eye out for true junk. EVERYTHING got opened and examined. In particular, one little piece of gray cardboard that had been folded and stapled in on itself to form a little pocket, large enough to hold something like a coin.

“Oooh, I’ll bet he’s got some stupid fake baseball commemorative coins in here and he rags on me for saving birthday cards? Wait ’til I tell him about this shit I found!”

Yep, sure enough, there were two little ‘coins of Canada’ from his Toronto Blue Jays days of pro baseball scouting in the ‘mid 90′s. I almost tossed them back into the bottom of the box.

But then I felt the coins slip out of their cardboard encasement. As they fell into my hands, I could see that one was quite heavy. I picked it up and felt its heft. “hmmm, I’ll have to show this one to John,” I thought.

Later that day when he was ragging on me again about the silly keepsakes I was keeping, I decided to play my card: “Oh yeah? What do you call this thing of yours? A fake gold Canadian coin!”

I held it in my outstretched palm, waiting for the first red flush of embarrassment to appear. Instead, his eyes got wide. “Do you know what this is?” he exclaimed. “This is one of the Kruggerands I received from the Blue Jays when I scouted for them.”

“Didn’t you cash them in a long time ago?”  “Yeah,” he said. “but I guess I missed this one. Maybe we oughta cash it in.”  “Ya think????” I thought it, but didn’t say it. Hey, even I can be nice on occasion. ‘Specially when some newfound money might be in it for me us.

Next day we took all eight boxes we are shipping to Panama to the local UPS Store. When the proprietress saw our huge load, she rolled her eyes and said “Wow, you folks are making my day! After you guys, I could close up shop, go home and take the rest of the day off!”

Gre-a-a-a-t. Just great. Our bill is her hay day. “Wonder how much this is going to cost”, John asked me. “Wanna go overs and unders?” “Sure,” I said. “As long as I get to pick the line.”

“Okay, go!”

“Umm, lemme think. Now we’re just counting on getting them to Miami. This is

Hmm, all these boxes to ship. Wonder, how much moolah?

 not inclusive of Miami to Boquete, right? Okay, hmmm, I’m thinking the line is $550.” I’m thinking I’ve got a good shot at this because I know he’s a bit paranoid of costs right now and he’ll take the overs for sure.

“I’m goin’ overs,” he crowed. He looked like the cat that ate the canary. Like he’d won before he started.

“Then that leaves me with unders,” I replied.

As the UPS store lady counted, she’d rattle off the weight and price of the boxes. By the time all was said and done it came in at……Well, why don’t you guess? Go ahead and leave a comment at the end of this post and maybe I’ll come up with a prize for the closest guess?

Anyway, we left the store and John had one more errand to run before we quit. He wanted to run that coin I found in the bottom of his memorabilia box to the local “we buy gold” place. Mainly just to see if it was worth anything. It was our local jeweler’s place and they’re quite well known for their fairness. They pay the going rate, whatever that is. I don’t follow commodities on the stock exchange.

He goes inside and I stay in the car playing Bejewelled on my iPhone. He comes back a few minutes later, gets in the car, turns to me and said: “Okay, give me a guess. How much do you think I got?” I can tell from his tone he’s pretty excited, so I hazard a pretty big guess on my part: “$364, right?”
“Higher,” he says.
“$365?”
“You dipshit, c’mon! Be serious.”
“You c’mon. I don’t know, $500?” He takes out a WAD of bills. I start counting: 100, 200 (all in $100 bills, mind you), 700, 800,…..I kept going and finally looked at John and said “Okay, dude, just tell me, how MUCH?”

“Thirteen hundred and fifty seven frickin’ dollars!” 

Yes, I love the feel of money. Even if I only get to hold it for a little while!

Who says Obsessive Compulsive Disorder has no upside?