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Fortunately I had put a new box of Kleenex on my desk because my potential client was on the verge of tears. He was middle –aged and of average height and weight.
“What is your problem?” I asked sympathetically.
“I’ve been robbed, Mr. Tuff. Please help me.”
“Perhaps you should report the theft to the police,” I suggested.
“I did, but they said they couldn’t help me.” He must have talked to the detective duo, Les Trade and Greg Son.
“What was stolen?”
Hank entered and put a cup of our muscular coffee on my desk.
“My whole collection of toothpicks.”
Hank began to cough vigorously to disguise his chortling.
“Toothpicks?” I asked.
“Yes. I had over five hundred of them, mostly wood, but a few metal, even gold and silver. It took me nearly six years to collect them. They were all mounted on sheets of cardboard with the date and place I got each one. They were all stolen from my house.”
I agreed to accept his case, explained my conditions and fees, and took his address and telephone number. His name was Woodrow Denton, “but everybody calls me Woodie.”
After Woodie left, I said to Hank: “I know that a philatelist is a stamp-collector and a numismatist is a coin-collector, but what do you call a toothpick-collector?”
“Crazy?” suggested Hank.
“Well, I think that’s what the word meant in Shakespeare’s time,” I said.
That afternoon I visited Mr. Denton. His small bungalow was in an ordinary residential neighbourhood, but whereas many houses seemed to have fireplaces or woodstoves, Woodie supplemented his furnace warmth with an electric heater. “I didn’t want to risk a fire with my toothpicks,” he explained.
I asked him how he became interested in his unusual hobby.
“Several years ago, I was having dinner in a restaurant with a friend when a large piece of food became lodged between two of my teeth. I couldn’t get it out with my tongue, so I asked the waiter for a toothpick. ‘Sir,’ he said haughtily, ‘this restaurant does not carry toothpicks.’ I began to notice if restaurants and coffee shops had them. Most didn’t. When they did, I took a few. Of course, I never use them in the dining area; I always go to the washroom. That’s how I became a toothpick collector.”
I wondered how the first collector of stamps and coins began.
“How many people knew you had all those toothpicks?”
“All of my friends and relatives and most people in the neighbourhood.”
“And who would want to steal them?”
“No one, I would think.”
I agreed. At least no one in his or her right mind, but maybe there was more than one “wood” person in the neighbourhood. You couldn’t trade them like hockey cards: “I’ll give you two Brad Parks for a Wayne Gretzky.” “I’ll give you three wooden toothpicks for a plastic one.”
I decided to check a few pawn shops and second-hand stores to see if anyone had tried to get rid of a toothpick collection, but my inquiries drew only puzzled looks, snickers, or outright laughter. One clerk said no and added that they were out of collections of cigarette butts too. Was he being sarcastic? I was quickly making no progress.
My next move was to walk around Woodie’s neighbourhood. I wished that my friend Amanda were with me because her amazing powers of observation had solved a couple of cases in the past. It was just at the time where summer and autumn meet and beside the houses with fireplaces or woodstoves were piles of wood – logs, lumber, and kindling – to supplement expensive conventional fuels.
Two houses from Woodie’s the woodpile looked different. What would Amanda have seen? After several minutes, I realized what it was: there was no kindling. Well, maybe they kept it inside or used a lot of crumpled paper to start fires. I went to Woodie’s place and asked about the person or people in the house.
“Mr. Burns? Yes, he’s a great user of natural fuel. He tried to persuade me to supplement my furnace heat with a fireplace or woodstove and one of these days I may do it.”
Woodie assured me that he and Burns were on a conversational basis, so I suggested that we visit him, but first I went to the liquor store. Not being much of a drinker, I was confused by the variety of brands, but eventually I bought a bottle of champagne, Sister Carrie’s Bubbly Wubbly.
Woodie introduced me to Mr. Burns and he invited us in. He got three glasses, and poured champagne into each. Yes, he had heard of Woodie’s robbery and he sympathized. As he was pouring more champagne, I asked if I could use the washroom. “Sure. Down the hall on your left.” I wondered how I could get into the basement or attic, but I didn’t need to. Opposite the washroom was a door which opened to a closet in which were several big sheets of cardboard on which were taped toothpicks! I took them back to the livingroom. “Look what I found.”
Mr. Burns turned red, Woodie turned white, but I couldn’t add a patriotic blue.
“Why?” asked Woodie, clutching his beloved toothpicks and again on the verge of tears, although this time it was for joy.
“They were going to waste,” said Mr. Burns. “You had no way of using them.”
“I’m sorry, Woodie,” Mr. Burns said, perhaps sincerely.
We retrieved the rest of the collection and left.
I learned later that Woodie had not bought a fireplace or woodstove, but he has put new, stronger locks on his house.
Now each time I see a toothpick in a restaurant or a package of them in a store, I think of Woodie and I wonder how big his collection is now.
