The Case of the Fragmented Figurine

“What you have in your hands is 100%, genuine, authentic crapola,” the man holding a mustard-yellow vase said to a woman gently cradling a brass thimble she claimed was once owned by Mark Twain.

“Good man,” she retorted with a look of disgust blanketing her wrinkled face, “I hope you didn’t overpay for that vase…at Walmart!”

Wow, the Antiques Roadshow was brutal—and we were still standing in line. Nearly a hundred souls lined up outside the civic center on a blustery Saturday morning, possessions in tow, hoping to discover that their worthless pieces of junk—collecting dust up in the attic—were actually valuable pieces of junk—worthy of collecting dust in a museum.

In line before the doors opened, we all eyed each other’s family heirlooms with great suspicion. One man’s heirloom was actually a hair-loom—a device that turned hair into clothes. I was dubious of its authenticity until I noticed that the color of his coat and his hair matched to a tee.

No one dared criticize the item I brought to be appraised today…because I kept it hidden in backpack slung over my shoulder. I was tempted to whip it out to show everyone what a true valuable antique looked like, when we all heard a small crash followed by a large scream.

I left the line and ran to the source of the ruckus to find a woman sitting in the middle of the parking lot, sobbing uncontrollably. She held what looked like pieces of a porcelain puzzle, but then I realized they didn’t make puzzles out of porcelain.

“What was it?” I asked, picking up a few shards she missed.

“A one-of-a-kind Humpty Dumpty figurine.”

“If you think it’ll help,” I said, “I can find all the king’s horses and all the king’s men, but I doubt we’ll be able to put…”

“Stop that joke right there. You don’t understand…my boss is going to kill me!”

“I’m pretty sure that’s against company policy, miss. Tell me the whole story.”

“I agreed to bring my boss’s figurine here today for an appraisal—he says it’s worth at least $800! But now we’ll never know since it’s in a million pieces, and he never had it insured! So now I just feel plain awful. Do you think my homeowners insurance would cover the cost to replace it?”

“Lady,” I said, helping her to her feet, “it depends if your boss asked you or told you to do this.”

Why was Ace wondering about the boss’s choice of words?

Check your solution against Ace’s.