Top Shelf

Once, for a short time, my husband and children and I lived just down the street from the house I grew up in. Not long after we moved in to the rent house, I found an unusual box hidden in the hallway linen closet, on the very top shelf that couldn't be seen when the cabinet doors were open. The shelf faced the wall, but if you reached between the shelf and the wall you could easily hide things there.
The box contained a complete set of tools for cutting, measuring and weighing cocaine. I didn't know they made such things for such specific uses, but apparently they had been produced as a matching set. Very pretty, by the way. Now, you may be asking how I recognized such tools. I don't blame you. No, I was not a drug-user myself (for real), but I had been around them some, occasionally, enough to observe how things were done. And of course, I watched lots of movies and TV. There's much to be learned on the big and little screens, if you pay attention.
So I found the box, and I couldn't quite figure out how to dispose of it properly. I mean, I couldn't see me selling it at a garage sale, although I'm sure it would have sold fast. I thought about just putting it in a bag with the household trash and placing it out for garbage collection. But then I imagined a stray dog or cat knocking down the trash can in the middle of the night and leaving the paraphernalia strewn across the driveway for the neighbors to see bright and early the next morning. Ebay didn't exist back then, or else I might have considered putting it up for auction. Now wouldn't that be something. Do they have a category for drug paraphernalia?
In the end, the only safe thing I could think to do was call the police. They came and fetched it without asking questions, and I was off the hook.