Congratulations on Finding the Bottom of that Magical Jar of Pickles!

When you bought the jar from that warlock, you snickered when he used the word bottomless.

“Really?” you snorted at him.  “I betcha I’ll find a bottom eventually.”

He smiled at you and whispered in your ear.

“If you should ever find one, I swear I will refund you all of your hard earned monies completely.  Assuming you can locate me at the time.”

You nodded and gave him the twenty bucks he asked for and you went home with an ostensibly bottomless jar of pickles.  As a physicist you knew that you could find the spatial bounds of the jar given enough time, so you ate pickles and did math and ate pickles and did math and ate pickles and did math.

You did this for three long years.

Today you’re going to reach into the jar of pickles and, holy shit, your fist is going to hit the bottom.

“Whaaaaaa,” you scream, drawing attention from your new wife, who will be absolutely horrified that something is happening to you.  After telling her the story of the pickle jar, more or less exactly as we did above, she’ll calm down and, using her previous training as a private detective, agree to help you track down the toothless hobo that sold you the jar.

This will be the beginning of a month long quest.  You’ll comb the streets of New York, find a lead that takes you to Calcutta.  From Calcutta, you’ll travel to Java.  Java will lead you to Timbuktu, and Timbuktu will take you to the town of Needles, California, where you’ll find the warlock sitting outside of a general store, drinking lemonade from a mason jar.

“Thought you could get away,” you’ll shout at him as you approach.  By the time you reach him he’ll have your twenty dollars out and in his hand and a smile on his lips.

“Been a while since anyone cared to find me,” he’ll murmur.

“Been a while since you had an informed consumer on your hands,” you’ll spit back at him.  He’ll laugh and wave your money at you.

“You can have this back.”  He’ll punctuate his phrase with a quick sleight of hand, stuffing the money up his sleeve.  Then he’ll wink at you and pull a box out from underneath the folding chair he’s sitting on.  “Or you can have the mystery box.”

Your wife will tug on your sleeve.

“Mystery box,” she’ll whisper into your ear. You’ll nod at her.

“We’ll take the box,” you’ll inform the warlock.

“Good choice.”

The box will hold a talking dog.  This talking god will inform you of an ancient Incan citadel that will hold within its walls the secret to eternal life and youth.  It’ll also contain a phenomenal amount of money.  The catch, of course, will be that the dog looks and sounds like Scrappy Doo.

Aside from that, it’ll be a pretty big net positive, well worth the twenty dollars you spent and the years of your life lost to hunting for that warlock.

Congratulations on Finding the Bottom of that Magical Jar of Pickles!