The Urine Pearls

Terry found the yellow tinted pearls at the bottom of a shopping bag in his father's closet. “What are these dad?” he asked his father, who sat at the kitchen table shoving oatmeal into his sausage mouth.

“Gawd, you found those, I thought I threw them away years ago.”

“Well, whose were they?”

“Well, they were your mother's. But before that, some gal's on the train. Someone I met years before when I used to commute. Gawd, you'd meet such terrible characters on those trains then, you'd think they'd purposively let in the crazies, rounded them up, ‘Roll yourself in, you crazies, these lifeless suits need some excitement'.” Then he abruptly shoved another spoonful of oatmeal into his mouth.

“There are still crazies on the train, Dad. The pearls?”

“Well, she handed me these pearls, just stuck them squarely in my palm like a hot towel those stewardesses practically force around your throat. And they were warm too and urine colored. That's what got me, you ever see urine colored pearls?”

“No, dad, I've never seen urine colored pearls.”

“Anyway, so I brought them home and gave ‘em to your mother, told her they were the latest rage; Mongolian super pearls. Christ, I'd seen an advertisement on the train, 'Take a voyage to exotic Mongolia', whatever and see I had just fucked Gertie, remember her? Nice fanny that Gertie had and the pearls they saved out marriage for a few years, I'll tell you that.”

“Jesus Dad, just Jesus.” I walked out of the room and was about to throw them out but got this bad feeling in the pit of my gut, like I'd been sucker punched or something and thought what the hell. I brought them to the jewelry store later on a lurk. Turned out they were worth a small fortune.

“Mongolian pearls, quite rare. Dipped in sacred yak urine by the monks. Gawd, haven't seen a set of these this close—just beautiful. You're a very lucky man.”