A NEW TOWN POTION

The move to a new town is always exciting. Meeting new people, seeing new sights and eating in completely new restaurants just to name a few of things.

Mark and Cindy arrived in southern Illinois in the spring of 2015 but it wasn’t without some difficulty.

They had wanted to move closer to their grandkids who lived in central Illinois but the house search took Mark and Cindy farther south than they really wanted to be. It was getting more affordable the further south they went. Weather got nasty with thunder, lightning and flooding the further they drove and after a flat tire change with 60-70mph traffic nearby they finally reached their destination of Goreville, Illinois.

Arriving at the house they hadn’t seen for two months, and the rain seemed to be getting worse. Mark had written down the number the realtor had given him, 1732 for the garage. Trying over and over on the keypad 1732, 1732 then tried the code over and over again. The garage door code was not working. Too late to call anyone, they decided to use the key on the front door.

Once inside the house they heard from the basement, a constant beep (pause) beep (pause) from the sump area. Upon further inspection the sound turned out to be an overactive sump pump alarm, due to the excessive rain. Mark found some tools by the sump pump and decided to work on it before he headed to bed. It was so loud he would have heard it all night from the bed and probably from Cindy.

Not finding a way to turn the sound off, Mark decided to put a pillow on top of the electronic control to muffle the sound. It worked he could now get some sleep

The first thing they needed the next day was to buy a bed. The old bed was too small, his wife was having hot sweats from her change of life and decided they didn’t want to be that close at night anymore. They moved up to a king from a queen.

“We have our own delivery people. They are contractors and work on Thursdays and Fridays.” Bed-Store Owner Slick Rick would say

“Tomorrow is fine” Mark and Cindy agreed. They couldn’t wait to sleep on their new bed.

The next day they anticipated the arrival of the bed by vacuuming and arranging furniture to have access to the bedroom. While Cindy was inside vacuuming and cleaning Mark and the dog Daisy took a stroll to the backyard.

Like two men on a mission, the men were right on time. Looked like a father and son team as they came in their pickup truck Mark was watching from the front office window they walked rapidly to the front door.

“Come on in” Mark opened the door

They were checking the pathway and 2 minutes later they were done setting up the bed. 

“That’ll be $20” the man said.

Stunned, Mark said “We already paid for delivery at the store”

“No, you didn’t,” he paused for a moment “We never get paid from the store”

“Cindy” Mark yelled to the kitchen, “Didn’t we pay for delivery already?”

“I think we did” she shot back

This was all confusing to Mark since he didn’t get involved with the actual purchase. He once again decided to let Cindy put it on her charge card. He never looked at the receipt.

Neither Cindy nor Mark had any cash.

“Follow me to the ATM” Mark said as he walked to the front door

The line was short at the drive-up. Following right on his bumper were the two delivery men

Mark let his window down “Here’s $20 and a ten dollar tip”

Thinking that the man would say “thanks” or anything kind was Marks expectations. What he got was a man in a rush to get his money and he didn’t care about the circumstances on how he got it.

The older man grabbed the money angrily without saying a word.

On his way back home Mark sees a sign on a roadside stand “CHANGE YOUR LIFE, MAGIC POTION”

Mark wonders “I’ve heard about things like this, now that I’m in a new town where no one knows me, might as well try it” 

“What exactly does this magic potion do?” Mark asked as he picked up a bottle from the stand display

“We’ve had people win the lottery, find a better job, fall in love. It works” The proprietor says

“I’ve been having some bad luck lately, maybe I can use it” Mark says cynically

“Oh this potion will give you better luck and just $29 for two bottles you can’t go wrong”

“Why would I need two bottles?”

“Sometimes, it might take two bottles just to get your confidence up, and its $19 for one bottle so you might as well buy two”.

 Mark thought for a moment and looked for the ingredients on the bottle. Proprietary blend it read. He smiled.

“Can I taste this? “

“Sure”

Mark opened the lightly sealed bottle and took a sniff of what smelled like vanilla, then a small swig.

He immediately felt a tingle in his throat and his head started spinning. He could remember his first grade teachers name, his first day of school and even when he was in diapers.

“Wow, what’s in this stuff?” 30 seconds later a number popped in his head “1732”. 

The special purchase price was made and Mark was $29 lighter in the wallet but he was tremendously confident the magic potion would work.

Mark stopped on his way home to buy a 4 digit lottery number 1732. He usually didn’t buy lottery tickets and knew the chances were somewhere between slim and none but he had a renewed confidence of his luck. The only explanation he could think of was the magic potion.

 It was getting close to sunset and before eating dinner he decided to go in the basement. It was time to work on the noisy sump pump. Down the stairs he went and just as he arrived by the sump area it quit making noise and his cell phone rang. It was a call from the bed store saying they apologized for the rude service people and they would reimburse him the $20 “Could it be the magic potion?” he thought.

Upstairs Cindy was just turning on the TV to see if it worked since the move.

Mark was just getting ready to tell Cindy the good news that the Bed store called but the TV was too loud, he couldn’t hear himself think

 “And the 4 digit number is 1 7 3 2” the pretty lottery model announced as the ping pong balls are sucked into the chamber. He couldn’t believe his ears but his eyes didn’t deceive him as it was posted on the screen “YES!”

“Cindy, we just won $5000!” Mark shouted.

“What? Really?!” she yelled back in a joyful screech. “What made you play those numbers?

Mark would have never told Cindy otherwise but hey, he just won $5000 what could she say.

“I stopped by a roadside store on the way back that had a sign “CHANGE YOUR LIFE” or something like that and I bought a bottle of magic potion. The man said people have won the lottery and other things after drinking the potion”

“And you just came up with 1732, just like that?” Cindy said

“Yeah just like that, amazing huh?!” he took out his phone and began to look up how to cash in Illinois lottery ticket.

“Looks like I have to go about 2 hours to cash in the ticket”. Marks starts planning his trip.

“I want to go with you”

“Of Course. We’ll both go and then we can eat lunch somewhere nice on the way back”

“That would be great” Cindy answers. “Could you look at that keypad on the garage before we go?”

“What was that garage code again?” Mark starts searching his once rain soaked shirt pocket and there it is in a note that he wrote to himself when he was in Wisconsin. Garage Code 1732