Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of the world-famous detective, Sherlock Holmes, was not above telling tales about himself in which he was the laughing-stock.
Here is one of those stories. As he tells it, he was waiting at a taxi- stand outside the railway station in Paris. When a taxi pulled up,he put his suitcase in it and got in himself. As he was about to tell the taxi-driver where he wanted to go, the driver asked him: “Where can I take you, Mr. Doyle?”
Doyle was flabbergasted. He asked the driver whether he knew him by sight. The driver said: “No Sir, I have never seen you before.” The puzzled Doyle asked him what made him think that he was Conan Doyle. The driver replied: “This morning’s paper had a story about you being on vacation in Marseilles. This is the taxi-stand where people who return from Marseilles always come to. Your skin colour tells me you have been on vacation. The ink-spot on your right index finger suggests to me that you are a writer. Your clothing is very English, and not French. Adding up all those pieces of information, I deduce that you are Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.”
Doyle said: “This is truly amazing. You are a real-life counter-part to my fictional creation, Sherlock Holmes.”
“There is one other thing,” the driver said.
“What is that?”
“Your name is on the front of your suitcase.”.
Jerald and Catherine had been married for 37 years, before Jerald decided to leave his wife for his secretary.
The divorce was long and messy, as there were a lot of assets to be divided between them. Jerald’s girlfriend demanded that he be the one to keep their multi-million dollar house so that she could live there, so Catherine was kicked out.
Catherine was only given three days to pack her things and leave the house, but was allowed to be there by herself to do so. She spent a couple days packing 37 years of belongings into boxes and suitcases before movers came to take it all away.
On the last day in her home, she made one final meal for herself consisting of shrimp, caviar and white wine. After she was done, she had a brilliant idea. Catherine went to every room in the house and stuffed caviar-dipped shrimp shells inside every curtain rod. She then cleaned up and left the house for good.
Jerald subsequently moved in with his girlfriend, and the two quickly settled. Within a week, however, the house started smelling terrible. The couple tried everything they could to get rid of the terrible smell but nothing worked. They even went so far as to replace the carpets.
After a month, the couple gave up and decided to sell the home. Nobody would go inside the house, let alone buy it, so the real estate agent ultimately gave up on trying to sell it. Jerald then called Catherine, knowing she loved the house, and offered it back to her at a tenth of its price. She accepted, but told them to pack up and leave right away. She gave them a week to move all their things into a new home — even the curtain rods.
