Worth more than gold: Unlocking a world of treasures and daydreams

I bought a safe for a song on auction a few weeks ago. It was an online auction, but the fact that I didn’t inspect it in person beforehand didn’t bother me.

From the pictures on the internet, it was clearly a sturdy thing in excellent condition. When I collected it the next day, I was confronted with an unpleasant surprise.

I was told that the safe was locked and it didn’t have a key. But I couldn’t help getting excited. As an avid auction enthusiast, I have heard dozens of stories about people buying locked safes and finding breathtaking treasures inside.

People buy safes to store their valuables, after all, and judged by the size and quality of my new safe, it must have belonged to someone wealthy – the kind of person who would store diamond rings, golden coins and stock certificates in it.

I wanted to use my angle grinder to cut it open, but then I reconsidered. What if it contained firearms and ammunition?

All those sparks can only mean one thing…

Eventually, I tracked down a locksmith with experience in opening safes. He opened it using a few delicate tools and a somewhat bigger assortment of foul words.

I couldn’t wait to twist the lever and inside I found… a single old purple R5 note.

Nothing else.

The safe in itself is a treasure, the locksmith told me after he made me two new keys.

He said it’s worth at least 10 times my winning bid. But it did very little to dilute my disappointment. That evening I told the lovely Snapdragon about my R5.

“And I hoped for a little fortune, a treasure,” I said. “You got more,” she said.

“Explain?” I asked. “You wanted something exciting,” she said.

“You didn’t worry about the money or anything, only the adventure.

“But in the end, that safe contained two weeks of daydreams, and to you, daydreams are so much more valuable than gold or gems.”

And that is exactly how I will think of that woman in future. She’s worth more than gold. She’s the stuff that dreams are made of.

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