Back in October, we went to Clearwater, FL for my sister-in-law's wedding. The ceremony and reception were right on the beach, and by the time we got back to the hotel room, the kids had picked up about half a pound of seashells. When we got home, we sorted through them and tossed out all of the broken and not-as-pretty ones (we live less than 30 minutes from the Gulf of Mexico-- boring gray seashells are less than a dime a dozen; it was no big loss), and put the nice ones in the kids' shell jar. There was one very pretty one, about the size of a nickel and bright orange. It must have been a mussel of some sort, because it was sealed shut and had a pretty design on each side. This was their favorite and instead of staying in the shell jar, they kept pulling it out to play with. (Translation: to argue over who's shell it was and who got to hold it.) After a little while, the shell got pulled apart so that they each had a half (there was nothing inside-- they were slightly disappointed about that), and neither half ever saw the inside of the shell jar again. Instead, I would find halves of that shell all over the house. One day it one would be sitting on the bar when I was cleaning the kitchen. Another day, one would be on the couch. Or the coffee table. Or anywhere a shell doesn't actually belong. Those shell halves floated all over the house-- and apparently under their own power, because no kid ever 'fessed up to leaving their half laying around.
The day after we started moving in, I was vacuuming the carpet-- a full time job, since all day long people were going in and out unloading boxes and furniture and it took me three whole days to remember to bring over a doormat! As I vacuumed down the hallway, I saw something small, about the size of a nickel on the floor. I stooped to pick it up. It was a little orange shell half. There's no telling how it ended up sitting in the middle of the hallway of a house we'd only spent one night in. But it was there. And I thought, "Well, it's definitely home, now!"
I like this story very much. It reminds me of a game we use to play. Do you remember the Geico Money with eyes? We cut him out from a magazine and hid him all around the house. You would get a point for finding him. Then we made it difficult and ruled the point’s value would decrees as the week went on (7 points for 7 days). We stopped the game because we could never find the Money Guy. Still haven't.
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