When I went down by the lake today, I walked past a pile of garbage floating next to a wall. There was an empty, corked wine bottle bobbing up and down. “Maybe I can use that for a vase or something,” I thought to myself. It happened to be within arm’s reach, so I crouched down and grabbed it.
Then I noticed that there’s a folded-up piece of paper in it!
I borrowed some napkins from a couple of elderly women who were eating ice cream (“Ohhh, a message inna bottle! When you meet the love of your life I get invited to the wedding, right?”) to wipe it off with, and stuffed it in my purse.
The bottle itself is green glass and has a long neck. I wonder how I’ll ever get the paper out of there, since I don’t want to break the bottle. The message itself is sort of yellowy and looks like it might have been written on the back of a sheet of graph paper. Whoever wrote it’s got chicken scratch handwriting. I can make out one line - “please don’t throw me away.”
So I’m going to take it home, let it dry out, and then try to retrieve the message with a pencil or a pair of needle-nose pliers or something. I wonder what it says.
Aauggh! I’ll bet the note said “If you read this you will shrink and be sucked into the bottle. Have a nice day. P.S. Please don’t throw me away.” I’ll bet even now she’s pounding on the glass trying to get out.
“This is a chain bottle. If you do not send out ten bottles with this message out in the next 24 hours, horrible things will happen to you. Just look at Peggy Sue of Norfolk, VA who ignored this letter…”
I pulled it out with a pair of chopsticks and some needle-nose pliers.
The message is written on the back of a… something. It looks like a radio station playlist or an order to make a mix CD. Whoever wrote it out likes Dave Matthews, John Hiatt and Jane’s Addiction. There is a URL printed on the paper - http://www.modernspecialty.com .
The back of it doesn’t have a name or phone number or e-mail or nothing, which I thought was pretty disappointing. Instead, it’s just a couple of random lines and stuff.
Here’s what it says on the back:
“‘Reality’ is the only word in the language that should always be in quotes” - My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult
“music is the closest thing to true love” - T.
An unintelligible signature.
“P.S. Mr. Garbage Man please don’t throw me away.”
It’s good that you’ve posted the contents. Now, when the author googles those phrases in an effort to find out what became of the bottle, the answer is here. I think we can date it to the 1990s or later.
