as i type this anthony is in my bed sleeping with his legs propped up on a locked, black-leather briefcase from the seventies. he knows the combo and plans on opening it first thing in the morning. this is why he has his legs on top of it right now. so he remember to open it first thing and so no one takes it from him while he's sleeping. after the initial opening in the morning, anthony will likely open it an additional forty to sixty times throughout the day. when he does open it, he will never take anything out of it, or put anything in it. he will just unlock it, open it, close it, and re-lock it by spinning the gold, number-dials. he may ask someone to scrumble the numbers for him. and if you say you're going to scrumble them so hard he'll never get it back open, he'll laugh hanging his upper torso over and doing everything but slapping his knee. when he composes himself enough to stand upright again he'll explain to you that you can't scrumble it too much because all he has to do is put all the numbers back on the circles (0's) and then he'll get it open again.

one of my kids pulled this briefcase out of a dumpster about four years ago.

who ever threw it out was kind enough to reset both the right and left flip locks so both sides were 0-0-0.

the combination thing reminds me of a friend of mine back in colorado-days who once found a bike lock on the sidewalk. it was one of those thin silver chain locks with a colored, usually blue or faded red, sleeve of plastic covering it. they had a four-number combination. after finding it he brought it home and over the next three months he and his three siblings would sit and try various combinations on the lock while watching television. they kept a notebook on the table with the lock and people would note the numbers they tried. they eventually discovered the combo. i don't recall how long it took them. it was in the months. and it was an impressive show of fortitude. (snake? do you recall?)

back to our briefcase.

there's always something in it. bella usually keeps her more personal journals in there. alex stores all sorts of random stuff in it which he re-discovers, with great fanfare, in later months and years.

approximately fifteen percent of our children's toys have been pulled, by them, out of dumpsters around our home.

as i think i've noted before, our hermit crab aquarium came from a dumpster. it still sports the red, raised-letter punch tape message that says PLEASE DON'T FEED THE ARTIFACT. we turn that message to the backside.

bringing things home they pulled out of dumpsters stands as one of my most vile, yet endearing, things my children do. in this father's eyes at least.