Schnauzer devours priceless Thomas Edison documents.
Fargo, ND – Retired teacher Olydia Blankstad was living in her modest home at 414 Gregory Lane on a very limited retirement income from 50 years of teaching American history.
At the ripe age of 86, she had lost both her first and second husbands to cancer, and was now living with her faithful pet schnauzer, Mister Biscuits.
Recently, Olydia decided to look through some old stuff in her dusty, cold attic.
While snooping around, she discovered a very old folder that was hiding in a secret nook in the wall.
After she carefully pulled it out and blew off the dust, she opened up the aged, brown folder.
Looking through her tri-focal glasses, her eyes gazed at something that took her breath away.
The contents of the folder appeared to be the original documentation for patent number 223,898.
It was dated November 4, 1879.
The patent had been requested by a Mr. Thomas Alva Edison.
It was for an electric lamp that “used a carbon filament or strip coiled and connected to platina contact wires”.
Up in her attic, Ms. Olydia Blankstad had just found the original patent application for the incandescent light bulb.
Not long after, some top experts were called to Olydia’s home to check the authenticity of the document.
Once it was found to be the real thing, it was estimated that the value of the original light bulb patent was worth an astounding $10 million dollars.
After years of being poor, Olydia Blankstad was going to be mega-rich.
The experts temporarily put Thomas Edison’s light bulb patent down on the kitchen table to go into her living room to set up for a group photo shoot that was to be used in all the national publications.
While unattended, her hungry pet schnauzer wandered into the kitchen.
Mister Biscuits was curious about the old document and proceeded to jump up onto the kitchen table.
A few minutes later, when the photographer came into the kitchen to retrieve the valuable patent, he saw Mister Biscuits just finishing eating his $10 million dollar snack.
Upon hearing the news, Ms. Olydia Blankstad suddenly died of a heart attack.
Mister Biscuits was later put down.
And the incandescent light bulb has now been banned by our government.