Visit Fun Lake Matchemonedo!

By Jeff Baker

The whole thing was worth about $28,000 so we went for it. Sounded crazy, but all we had to do was send out the mailers and wait for the money to come in.

Timeshares, you say? This was better than timeshares. Offers for sale of land in the God-forsaken area near lake Matchemonedo. Harry and his family had vacationed there when he was a kid. So, the idea of offering property there was a good idea we thought.

“Nobody is ever too gullible,” Harry said.

And we had a premium: we ordered a shipment of souvenir pillows from Lake Matchemonedo. “As Part of Your Offer, We’ll Send You…”

We collect the money and we take a powder.

It should have worked.

Our office was a real address, 1933 S. Griswold Street. That’s the actual address of the back of the lot I inherited. All that’s on it is a big tin tool shed. But we needed a mailing address for it to work.

As I said, it should have worked.

Except we didn’t check out the area: the lake had flooded over and the land we were selling was all underwater. And then there was that big earthquake (3.9!!!) that made the news and nobody was going to buy any flooded lots on a fault line.

So we didn’t get the money, but we didn’t get caught either. The cash we did get paid for that shipment; about two-thousand of those pillows from Lake Matchemonedo.

We’re gonna need a bigger shed.

—end—

AUTHOR’S NOTE: The draws for this month’s Flash Fiction Draw Challenge were a crime caper, set in a tool shed or utility closet, involving a decorative pillow. I wish I could take credit for using the name “Lake Matchemonedo,” but I read someone stuck it in their horror novel. It’s from the Kolchak episode “The Energy Eater.” —-j.s.baker