3 Merry Widows

Agnes, Mabel and Beckie

Saturday, February 27, 2010

Today was a wonderfully miserable day. Wonderful because I was fossil hunting in the Peace River with a group of fellow crazies and because they were paying me as the guide. Miserable because it was windy, rainy and cold. Not as cold as in recent weeks when it dropped to a bone chilling 22 degrees (while standing in the water), but still an uncomfortable mammal wading temperature in the upper 40s.

Along with the customary sharks teeth and dugong ribs, one of my fellow gang members dug up an odd shaped rusty, tin cannister about the size of a silver dollar and an inch thick. I opened it to see what was inside but found only sand. Collectively, we all tried to guess what it used to contain.

"A woman's make-up!" I ventured.

"Snuff!" said someone else.

When I got home, I keyed in the words, "3 Merry Widows" and nearly fell off my chair laughing.

Our mystery cannister was manufactured prior to the 1940s, and originally contained three "re-usable" condoms.

fossilx@earthlink.net