A Maple Lake, MN man found a nice chunk of change while cleaning out the family Dodge Caravan over the weekend. 56 year old Douglas Mitchell, a local handyman for hire, was checking off his weekly honey do list in the 11th hour when he first started collecting the coin. We caught up with him after first hearing of the story at the local VFW.

“We’ll the wife had been houndin’ me for over a decade to clean that damn minivan and I refused to do it because I felt the thing stole my manhood!” Douglas explained over the icy blue mountains of a quarter full Coors Light.  “But she had me by the balls and twisted if ya know what I mean.”

Not really sure what he meant we interviewed his wife for more information.  “He hadn’t cleaned that van for over 20 years and every year he told me he’d do it!” She exclaimed in a voice louder than necessary. “So I buried the keys so he couldn’t go to the bar til he cleaned it!”

Satisfied we had enough info and still had our hearing we followed up with Mr. Mitchell to complete the story. When asked how there could possibly be that much change in the car, we finally received a coherent and decibel appropriate response.  “With 5 kids runnin’ through that thing day and night, I thought they were just playin me for a fool with all their claims of lost lunch money!” He snorted between sips. “Kind of feel bad now that I never gave em any more money. Oh well, they survived.”

When asked what he did with the plus $700 worth of change he gave a smirk.  With Free Bird playing on the juke box and fresh Coors in hand he shouted,  “Wrappin’ up the final few bucks right now with the boys!” At that, ‘the boys’ hoisted their beers over the near by pool table and clinked.