What's the strangest thing you have in YOUR house. I have a box of socks with no mates. How about you?

[DaBronx]

40. Wow, I do have something strange

I went to an estate sale. The deceased was a scientist that did very complex work, some of it was obviously for the government based on the nature of the field of work. I picked up a few items. At the checkout table they put my items in a cardboard box. When I got home I unpacked my items. Wedged in the box, between the corrugated dividers, was an old memo pad with the deceased person's name on it. It was the type of old memo pad that you would keep near a phone on your desk. It still had quite a few sheets left on the pad. On the back of the pad, on the supportive cardboard side, "CALL CIA!" was written in large case block letters. Taken together, the two words, marked by an exclamation point, seemed to radiate a great sense of urgency. How many times have you grabbed something to write on in a pressing situation? I wondered why the back of the pad, not the front? It was a quick grab for sure. A desperate reach when time was of the essence.

I've wondered what it was about. I had imagined that the scientist was on the phone, and was in the midst of a conversation and a dilemma, while his wife frantically tried to get his attention - perhaps she wrote the note and shoved it in front of him. Or, he may have jotted it down himself, as he received advice from a concerned coworker or friend who was on the other end of the phone.

When I was much younger, my mother listened to Paul Harvey, host of the radio show, The Rest of the Story. It featured stories, many times about famous people, but withheld certain facts to keep things interesting until the end when those facts would be revealed. Then, he'd say the tagline, "And now you know...the rest of the story.

The only problem here is I don't know the rest of the story!