On Christmas day our entire family gathered in the living room of my grandpa's house to exchange gifts and stories. The children were laughing and climbing all over the furniture and the adults were eating sweets and gossiping when it happened.
My cousin Mary screamed at the top of her lungs!
Without saying anything, she held up her right hand to show everyone the tragedy - she had lost the diamond centerpiece from her engagement ring!
Of course the entire family came to her emotional rescue and got down on their hands and knees to search for the valuable gemstone. Although everyone was very eager to find the diamond, we rummaged around the entire room for over twenty minutes and came up short. Then Grandpa got to thinking... he used his best Dumpdiggers tactics to determine the solution to the problem.
Grandpa went upstairs and retrieved one of grandmother's nylon stockings. Next he opened the closet in the hall and fetched out the vacuum cleaner. He fastened the stocking on the end of the vacuum cleaner's nozzle. When Grandpa turned on the vacuum, about three inches of stocking was sucked up inside the nozzle, and out of sight. But Grandpa didn't care - he applied suction to the entire carpet, and the chair in which Mary had been sitting...
After six minutes, when grandpa finally turned the blessed machine off, the diamond presented itself on the nozzle inside a lint ball of dust and cat hair on the surface of grandma's nylon stocking.
