Optimism

It all started as usual - with me checking out every nook and cranny of my hotel room. I was on one of my many travels to foreign lands and I really like to see what they have kept around for my enjoyment. You never know if they will gift you a 50-cent diamond in a neat little package on your bed along with the laundry some day. Besides, I had lost my pen and was trying to find it.

In my fruitless (fruitful if I find the diamond, who cares about a pen) expeditions was I thus engaged when suddenly I espied some shiny object winking at me from the darkest recesses of the room. Muttering encouraging adjectives to myself, I advanced upon that corner of the carpet.

It really was in the darkest possible recess and I had to do quite a bit of squeezing and pushing and pulling to get my pinky there...but I did manage to, in the end. My hands closed around something hard and cold and I was ecstatic. My pen!! I wondered how my pen might have wandered there. I carefully pulled it out in the light to examine my find more thoroughly and to make sure no ink was dripping around.

I blinked.

I blinked again.

It was a 50-cent diamond.