The Rare Surprise A Man Found When Eating Clams
It's getting a snow day on a Friday when you're a kid. It's finding $20 on the sidewalk. It's winning on a scratch-off ticket you bought with some spare change. All of these things in life are some of the sweetest experiences, perhaps because they're the most unexpected. It's even more incredible when you find these strokes of luck in the most surprising of places.
This was the case for one Scott Overland, a husband and father from the Philadelphia area who was enjoying a meal at a Delaware restaurant. According to USA Today, Overland and his wife were eating an appetizer of clams when he bit down on something hard. What he discovered wasn't a piece of shell or some jewelry that had fallen into his food, but instead a pearl — a purple pearl, to be exact. For a dish that cost no more than $14, Overland had stumbled on a valuable treasure that averages anywhere from "$600 to $16,000" per TODAY.
TODAY reports that the couple almost sent the dish back, as it included a topping of pico de gallo — something Overland's wife didn't like. Rather than send the dish — and the pearl — back, the two decided to not make a fuss and enjoy the meal anyway. Overland even joked that the pearl was their reward for "not being a pain at restaurants."
While Overland is no doubt a lucky man, just how often do people find treasures hidden in their seafood dinners?
It's a somewhat rare occurrence to find pearls in your clams
Before you go hauling yourself over to your nearest oyster house to order a couple dozen clam meals to see if you can strike it lucky, we're sorry to say that you'd probably be wasting your money. Finding a pearl in your oysters Rockefeller is pretty rare and chances are you probably won't be finding your windfall the next time you go out for some seafood. But this isn't to say that these types of things have never happened previously.
According to ABC News, a woman by the name of Judy Dargan purchased some oysters from a local grocery store for dinner with her husband. When she bit down into one, she found a small, round, white pearl. Though unaware of how much the pearl was worth, Dargan reportedly said that she wanted to make the pearl into a pendant and pass it on as a family keepsake.
Perhaps one of the most astounding discoveries was made by a woman in New Orleans. As The New York Post reports, Keely Hill was enjoying a seafood meal when she discovered not one, not two, but 12 shining white pearls in her oyster dish. Just like Dargan, Hill wanted to turn the twelve pearls into some jewelry — though, she unfortunately lost one before having all 12 pearls formed into a ring. While these types of things are uncommon, there's always the slight chance it can happen to you.