My bags are packed and I'm off to Lake Charbarkul, somewhere in the Ural Mountains. There may not be gold in them thar hills, but there are lots of mysterious looking Russians hanging around willing to pay top ruble for some pebbles.
I'm not all that keen on really long airplane flights, but I bet Aeroflot mixes a mean vodka martini. With maybe a borscht chaser. Well fed and in a bit of a drunken stupor I should be able to nap most of the way. And if I drink enough, maybe I'll be able to stay warm while I pick my way through the frozen tundra of an icy mountain lake and dig around for some small chunks of burned meteorite. How hard can it be?
No matter how many rubles I can get on the Russian black market, I'm keeping at least one rock for me. It may look like a pebble on a vast beach, but on my finger it's going to be like that upgrade all the other chicks in the neighborhood get about the time they turn forty, only cooler. No more feeling like the kid from the wrong side of the tracks; I'm going to have a rock on my finger the size of Montana but with a far more interesting pedigree. Sure, I've had to wait more than a decade since most of my friends scored the wife trophy, but when I start waving my hands around and showing off my wares I'll be the talk of the town. In a good way, for a change. Nobody needs to know I had to drag my ass halfway across the world and trudge for miles in snow boots to snag it; I already have a little blue box stashed in my purse just to throw them off. (The truth is, before I spring for airfare, I'm going to dig through the pothole I've driven through every day for the past two weeks; there must be some heavenly looking rocks in there, along with big chunks of my car.)I've never thought myself to be as materialistic and as concerned about appearances as I seem to have become. But as my father used to tell me after I'd lose a tennis match despite my brand new racquet and cute new outfit, it's not how you play, it's how you look. Winning ugly may still be in vogue (after all, a win is a win), but since I'm not in the game for any big prize money (if that isn't an understatement I don't know what is) I'm going with losing pretty. Small consolation maybe, but if I'm going to have to spend the rest of my life parked in a double wide not knowing what it's like to be showered with undying love and affection and diamonds, I might as well enjoy a few moments of watching people turn green with envy.
If fifty can be the new thirty and brown can be the new black, then why can't a black pebble of uncertain origin be the new diamond? Time to think outside the little blue box.
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