I wasn’t quite finished with the story I was telling by the time 2025 ended and so decided to continue it until it reached an ending point. Then I will start a new one. Besides, I kind of want to see where Penelope ends up. And so we have…
Day 196: She used the scissors to slice through the tape.
She used the scissors to slice through the tape. It was several layers thick and required a bit of effort to get through. Penelope braced the package against her body as she didn’t want to jostle her arm too much now that the pain of falling on it subsided. She got through the layers and pried apart the edges She decided it would be better to turn it upside down and dump everything out of the tape and plastic cocoon. She remembered her trick with the towel before that not only cushioned the items as they fell to the hard surface of the counter but kept them from rolling off the slick surface.
‘I guess its as second towel to smell like old metal and dust,” she said as she took another tea towel from the drawer and spread it out on the counter. She upended the split package and started to take the items out. A few of the smaller items fell out immediately. Others, she had to reach in and pull out. It was a slow operation as she was working one handed, but eventually she got all of the items out of the cocoon.
It was certainly a mixed bag. There were a lot of tangled chains and bracelets with a few rings and a couple of pairs of earrings mixed in. Some were delicate little things others were big and chunky. She decided to untangle everything and lay it out in a row before looking for charmed items.
As she worked, she could see the occasional glimpse of a charm etched onto metal. In a few cases the charm was a metal item itself and placed under glass or encrusted with epoxy. Some of the pieces looked high end and some looked like cheap costume jewelry she was more likely to see on a child.
She untangled the mass of it and found about a third of the items had charms while the others were just plain jewelry. Oddly some of the plain jewelry pieces looked like they might have real stones in them.
“And some of the charmed pieces clearly aren’t expensive.” She thought about that as she separated the charmed jewelry out from the rest. With the extra pieces she set aside items that she thought looked like they might be worth something as well as those hat she just plain liked. She made a third pile of jewelry that didn’t have any charms anywhere on them but looked like they could take charms.
‘I’ll have to practice on something,” she decided.
All her efforts created mini piles of jewelry on the counter. Anything with a charm she put into the jewelry box. She then went to the cabinet and retrieved a stack of reusable plastic containers. She put each of her piles into one of the containers. Doing so cleared off the towel and Penelope reached for the next of her mystery bundles.
She repeated the process of opening the first one. She cut it open, extracted the items and sorted through them on the towel she laid out on the kitchen counter. She split the items into their groups and when the towel was clear she reached for the next bundle to continue.
In each package about a third of the items had a charm on them. Some had more and one had a few less, but on average a third was about right by her guess. Until she got to the last package.
Ten til Midnight 