HOW FAR WOULD YOU DRIVE for this photo?

I ask you that in all seriousness. How far would you drive for this photo? A quarter mile? Mile and a half? Six miles? I did at least over thirty. That's two round trips to an antique store.

I must have been out of my mind.

Actually, there's a simple explanation. I found this in a bin and grabbed it because it made me laugh. It's very small and seriously, who else would buy it but me? I knew it would never find a home. I mean, even I threw it back in a few times before reeling it in again. Fifty cents. It was marked fifty cents. Even I knew it was overpriced, but I've yet to find anybody selling photos, no matter how small, for a penny.

And so I went to the clerk to pay and walked back to the car excited to get my finds home and on the scanner. But then "oh no!" The tiny scrap was not in the bag that I dumped upon my desk. It was missing. I'd paid fifty cents and I didn't get it. You have no idea how cheap I am, but fifty cents is fifty cents. I once passed up a parking lot in England at a small nice hotel because they wanted 6p. Mind you that 6p was to be split three ways. "NO," I said. "I shan't pay it!"

So now I had to call the store and tell them I didn't receive my ridiculous little piece of brightly colored paper that I'd paid fifty cents for. The man on the other end of the line seemed somewhat confused as I tried to explain what he was to look for. I mean, it's tiny; it could easily get stuck to someone's shoe and be traipsed through the entire store with no one being the wiser. With a bit of searching he said he'd found it. I told him to hold it under my name and I'd be back on the weekend for it.

So off I go on a Sunday, a day I normally avoid antique stores, to get my tiny badly tinted photo. I go to the clerk and say my name along with, "I'm here to pick up a photo I bought the other day which wasn't put in my bag." The woman looked around and finally came up with the photo and a post card. I said, "Yes, that's it, but the post card isn't mine." This seemed to make her sad. Apparently someone else did not get all they'd purchased, but I'm guessing they never called in to claim it. They probably had enough sense to know it wasn't worth the fuel to drive back and get it. But ah ha!!! This is where I was the wiser. I drive a hybrid! So I had driven to the store very slowly, attempting to make sure I drove on electric most of the way. So my actual cost of fuel was...okay, probably over fifty cents. But then just think, if I hadn't retrieved it you would have never had this wonderful moment of feeling superior to me.

And oh, by the way, my second trip back cost me a lot more than fifty cents by the time I was through browsing again.