The Antique That Got Away

Here is the first of the newly written summer devotionals...I'll only fall back on my creative writing ones when nothing happens.

The Antique That Got Away

A few days I ago I had the pleasure of attending the Coarsegold antique fair with my father. We both enjoy junk, especially old junk, and antique fairs usually have junk in profusion.

The Coarsegold antique fair certainly had junk. Much of it was very expensive, which is the only reason we did not return with a truck full of excellent top quality junk.

We found a mounted boar head. I kid you not, we found a mounted boar head. Ladies, I’ll let you in on a secret. Every man has the secret urge of owning a mounted boar head. However, I suspect women do not share this desire. I do not understand why. What you do is take the boar head, and mount it in a special room of the house called a “den.” Then put on a flannel shirt, read a newspaper, smoke a pipe, and pet the dog while sitting in an easy chair under the boar head. This is probably the closest to heaven that we can experience here on earth (except Adventist men should omit the pipe smoking part and replace it with eating prosages or ice-cream or both.)

Sadly, the boar head was out of our price range, and I think mother would have disapproved anyway, so we left it. We continued our trek around the fair, and spent about an hour looking at old postcards and older antique dealers.

Finally, we came across a booth run by two old ladies who were having a very hard time. They had boxes and boxes of junk which they hadn’t even unloaded yet, and it was already noon. Apparently they only put one item out every half hour. Worse yet, they had no idea what anything was worth, and if they did, they priced it based on the dollar values of 1955.

My dad purchased a $300 pocket knife from them for $5, and they actually were afraid they’d priced it too high. I wasn’t that lucky, but I did watch as they put out one item that I decided I had to own.

It was a “Shazam” Captain Marvel drinking glass. If you don’t know who Captain Marvel is, don’t be surprised. He was basically a Superman rip-off from the 1940’s, who for a time actually surpassed big blue in popularity. He was a ten-year-old boy, that upon saying the magic word “Shazam” would transform into a muscle bound hero. When you’re ten years old, that is really cool. I’m twenty and I still think it’s really cool.

As for the glass, I’m the kind of person who occasionally gets the odd urge to buy things for his unborn children. If I ever have a son someday, I’ve already got a few Christmas or Birthday or Tuesday presents stored up for him. Not so much for daughters, I’m letting my unknown\unmet wife worry about that.

I had to buy that glass, but my dad was looking through some interesting agricultural pamphlets from 1922 about sheep-killing dogs and udder diseases, and I decided to wait for him to get done before I went over to ask how much the poor old lady wanted for it.

I had stood there for about three minutes, thinking about how cool it would be to see my kids drinking from that cup, when tragedy struck. Some woman walked up, picked up the Shazam glass, and bought it for $1.

How dare she!? The old bat stole my Shazam cup! It only was a dollar? Ebay says it’s worth at least $15! Curse my inaction and procrastination!

That’s the way life works, though. The opportunity to buy that cup presented itself, but I told myself it would still be there in five minutes. However, the door of probation slammed in my face and my cup got away. I can live without it, though. Inaction and procrastination can cost a man far worse things.

The attitude that we can wait to put our lives right with God until we’re old-or until next week-is a very dangerous one. There may not be a next week for you, and good intentions achieve nothing. Action is required. A person is defined by what they do. Don’t put off trying to break a bad habit, or trying to witness to a friend, because just as easily as that cup walked away from me the opportunity to change yourself or help others can vanish too.

Don’t wait! Act today.

Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.

Matthew 22:44

Epilogue: The trip to the antique fair wasn’t a complete washout. I bought a Beverly Hillbillies comic book that features the Clampetts fighting a crazed robot. It rocks all kinds of awesome.