A Visit to My Vault!

One Ethiopian Birr, just one part of my fabulous wealth!

Yesterday I was talking to someone. This is something I think I do most days. In fact, if I think about it, every day since I was able to talk (which I can't remember because I think I was probably a baby at the time) I have spoken and/or been spoken to. This is the natural order of things for people like me, who have a fully-functional vocal tract and ears. So, as I was saying, I was talking to someone yesterday and the subject of PRECIOUS stones and metals came up. It reminded me of the fantastic treasures I have safely tucked away in the vaults deep beneath my compound and I decided that I ought to visit my vaults to roll around in all of my fantastic wealth and treasure!

Now I am not going to tell you how to get into my vault because to do so would risk someone sneaking in in the middle of the night, probably dressed in black and tip-toeing like a cat burglar, and stealing all of my wonderful coins and gems and jewels and gold bars and all of the other super valuable things I have down there. While I am not going to tell you how to get into the vaults I am going to tell you about my trip to them and all of the fun I had!

First I went over to the barn. That is where the entrance to the vaults is located. Not in the barn itself but in the silo that's right next to the barn. There's a ladder that goes up the side of the silo and I had to climb that first (yes, sometimes you need to go UP to go DOWN!). To get to the ladder this is a key pad you need to use. I pressed in the code: 5-5-5-5 and the metal grate at the base of the ladder opened. I began the climb. It was important for me to remember that every red rung on the ladder was a dummy rung and if I put any weight on one of them it would give way and I would fall. It's a simple but effective security measure!

At the top of the silo ladder there is a platform with a door - and another keypad! I pressed in the code: 5-5-5-5 (I use that for most things since it's so easy for me to remember!). With a quiet whirr, the door on the platform slid open and I stepped into what I like to call my "grain elevator!" (you see, because it's an elevator in a silo that's full of grain, get it!) and punched in the code: 5-5-5-5 to unlock the elevator. Then I pressed the floor button. To trick people, I have a lot of buttons on the elevator control panel, mostly numbers but a few letters and a couple of symbols as well. Unless someone presses the right one (the one with the $) the elevator is locked and an alarm sounds and my security team arrives in no time flat!

I pressed the button with the $ and the elevator began to go down. It takes several minutes because the elevator starts way up above the ground (at the top of the silo) and has to go deep underground (to the vaults. In order to open the elevator door I pressed in the code - you guessed it - 5-5-5-5! Stepping out of the elevator there is a long corridor with bare light bulbs hanging every five feet or so. Along the corridor - which is bare concrete - are plain metal doors. Each door has a number and each number is "5." I did this to confuse people even more.

In order not to confuse myself I had the door to the treasure room painted green with a big gold $ on it. I walked to that door and entered the code (5-5-5-5) to unlock it. The door unlocked and I stepped into the vault. I have one of the most ingenious things in the vault - a "sensor" that "detects" motion and "turns on" the lights automatically. This labor-saving device lets me see in the vault without having to flick the switch that is next to the door.

When the lights came on I was able to behold my treasures! Let me list them here for you to be boggled by!

• A million pounds of gold - mostly gold bars but also some giant nuggets that I found when I was exploring some abandoned mines in South America once.
• A pile of rubies that is 10 feet tall.
• A pile of emeralds that is also 10 feet tall.
• My fabled "pearl pit" which is like those really fun ball pits you see at amusement parks or fast food restaurant play areas; but instead of being filled with colorful plastic balls, this one is full of precious pearls!
• A mountain of Spanish doubloons that is so tall you need an oxygen mask to get to the top. I found these in a bunch of shipwrecks on the bottom of the ocean.
• 1000 paintings by very famous painters, mostly they are on velvet which is such a wonderful material for really bringing art to life.
• 10,000 suitcases full of money. All kinds of money (except doubloons, which I keep in a mountain) including French Francs, Deutsche Marks, Belgian Francs, Austrian Schillings, Maltese Lira, Greek Drachmas, Dutch Gulden, Cypriot Pounds, Irish Pounds, Portuguese Escudos, Estonian Kroons, Italian Liras, Slovak Korunas, Finnish Markkas, Latvian Lats, Slovenian Tolars, Lithuanian Litas, Spanish Pesetas and Luxembourgian Francs. This money along is worth so much!
• A huge vat of molten platinum (I like to be sure to have some liquid assets!)
• My collection of fishing lures.
• A library of the most famous and rare books in the world.
• Some very old food that is bound to be worth something.
• Some very old clothing (mostly from the days of Ancient Egypt) that is bound to be worth something.
• A collection of vintage powerboats.
• My fleet of 20 747s. Unfortunately, because they are all in the vault and I can't get them out I can't actually use them anymore :-(.
• One million bottles of the best wine in the world.
• 99 bottles of beer on the wall.
• A gram of yslthayt (the rarest material in the universe. It hasn't been discovered by earth scientists yet and I had to promise not to show it to anyone for a super long time).
• Another mountain of assorted gem stones. I don't know what they are but they are very shiny and very precious.
• Every piece of mail I have ever received and copies of all of the mail I have ever sent, even all of my bills!

I would go on but I realize it may seem like I am bragging about my tremendous wealth and treasures. That is the LAST thing I want to do! I am, as you probably have guessed by now, one of the most humble people in the world, no - the solar system, no - the galaxy, no - the galactic cluster, no - the universe, no - the multiverse, no - all time and space, forward and backward, folded and unfolded. It also happens that I am tremendously blessed with riches that exceed the collective wealth of the entire planet for all time. But I don't let it go to my head!

With WAY more than two coins to run together, I am . . .

ANDY LAM!