Updike Luck

Those who read this screed with any regularity

are already acquainted with my love of John Updike,

who, besides just possessing my esteemed enamorment,

has won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction not once but twice.

The day before yesterday I just happened to drop by the Half-Price Books

in my town, where I, on a whim, thought some new Updike might just be the thing.

So I picked this up.

Note its price: $4.98.

Well, the day went on, I continued shopping, visited with friends, and was waiting for my Independence Day Freedom Potato Salad spuds to finish boiling when I thought I might read a story or three while I was waiting. After all, there were 40 of them.

Oh, look at that, an inscription in a used book.

Let's see whose Great Aunt Margot gave this to them on which holiday...

Well, I'll declare.

That there says,

"for Mark

a rare volume

John Updike"

Being me, my first thought at any awesome event such as this is, "Nuh UH."

So of course I went and checked here and there on the Interweb to convince myself, and it seems to be authentic, and selling for anywhere from $59.00 to $899.00 depending on what it emblazons.

Now I suppose I could sell it and make a little soon-spent cash, but I think instead I might frame it and hang it on my office wall as a reminder of how the random regularity of the universe, in its oddly delightful way, is indeed looking out for little old me.