The Medallion
By David Barth
Written April 6, 2008
Liz Walk was a pretty girl, married to a handsome man who took good care of her. One day, while browsing on eLagoon,
looking for anything that might be of interest to buy, she stumbled across a mediallion with a rainbow on it.
The medallion looked old and was being sold by what appeared to be a cranky old guy, based on the way he decribed
it.
Anyway, Liz was interested in it, and then she became horrified when she saw that the initials on the bar at
the top of the medallion
were those of her mother! She tried to contact the seller, but he would not answer her pleas for information on
how or where he got it. Liz was certain this was her mother's medallion, but she had no proof. How could it have
gotten into the hands of this seller?
Maybe her mean stepmother had given it away, the way she had given away all
of her father's beloved books and cameras before he died. She wanted the medallion so badly, and to get it, she
would have to act fast because the auction was to end in five minutes. She quickly signed on and placed a bid of $51,
slightly above the current bid. eLagoon replied that she was now the highest bidder. She felt a wave of relief pass
over her body with the realization that she would win the medallion!
Then, suddenly, a message popped up that she
was no longer the highest bidder. She thought, "How dare someone outbid me for my own mother's medallion! I have a
God Given right to it! It is mine! It should be mine! Oh, heck, I'm going all the way with this!"
And with that competitive spirit, Liz placed a bid of $120. Once again, she was top bidder. She sighed a sigh of
half regret because $120 was too much money to pay for an old, crummy looking pin! But she had placed the bid,
and she knew she would have to pay for it when the auction ended.
And the end was near. The auction was to end in five seconds. Liz had sudden wish that someone would outbid her.
After all, her kind husband would be furious that she spent so much money on a lousy, crusty pin that only an
inmate at a sanitarium would actually wear!
Suddenly, the auction ended! But then a message from eLagoon displayed, "YOU LOST THE AUCTION. YOU ARE NOT THE WINNING
BIDDER! BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME! REMEMBER, BID HIGH AND BID OFTEN!"
At first, Liz was joyous. She would not be on the receiving end of her kind husband's wrath over spending good
money on junk pins. But immediately, she remembered it was HER MOTHER'S medallion, and she began to cry. Her
husband heard her weeping, and he came into the room to find out what was troubling his precious Liz.
His name was Whitney, and he was tall. Because of his height, his friends began calling him "Shorty," and later, just
"Short." Short Walk was a nice, handsome guy who was a VP of Loss Prevention for a large, international corporation.
He was very congenial, but when he was upset with a person, he would stand up, towering over the other person,
and glare at them. Most people that he got upset with had to leave the room to clean their shorts.
Short walk had done this to a group of school boys who were raising the dickens in a restaurant in New York City.
He simply stood up and said, "Keep it down!" And the restaurant got very quiet. He sat back down, and the school
boys quietly crept out of the restaurant, taking what food they had left in their napkins or leaving it on the table.
Their mission was to get out of Short Walk's sight as quickly as possible. They were scared.
But back to Liz. Short Walk asked her what was the trouble, and she explained to him what had happened. Now, she
wished she had placed a bid so large that nobody could have won it from her. She decided that she should have bid
$1,000 for the medallion. But it was too late.
Her husband was very computer savvy, and he did a quick Internet search and found the pin on a website called
Rainbow Girls Medallion. He showed it
to Liz and said, "See, there is your medallion! You needn't cry, because you have it there for all time!"
Liz retorted, "No I don't have it. All I have is a stupid picture of it on the web!"
Short Walk stroked her hair and softly said, "Liz, if you really owned the pin, it would sit in some dusty drawer.
What would be the use in that? Now it is probably in some Masonic museum, on display, where it should be. If you
owned the pin, you would want to display it on the web so that if the conversation happened to turn to Rainbow
Girls, you could tell your cousins and friends to go look at your mother's medallion on the web!"
Liz suddenly brightened up and realized that Short was right. If she owned the pin, it would sit in a drawer. Now,
she could tell her relatives in Colorado and California and her friends in New Jersey and New York and the United
Kindom to look at it on the web. After all, her mother's initials could be seen in the picture. She realized that,
because she didn't have a daughter (or even a son) to bequeath the medallion to, the web site was actually better
than owning the pin.
Liz happliy skipped to the kitchen and began to make Short's favorite dinner, short ribs.