"Did I ever tell you the story of the grey M&M ?"

"I never heard of a grey M&M"

"Well that's just the thing. Not too many adults know about it...but the kids know and that's why I know. When I was working in Jose Tejas we used to give out candy to the kids. We would give em either Starburst, Skittles or M&Ms. A lot of the kids would get their M&Ms and pour them out on the table but I never thought twice about it. They were kids. One time a child walked up to me and said,

'Excuse me, Mister, can I have another bag of M&Ms? I didn't get no grey M&M.'

I went and asked one of the other waits what the kid was talking about and that's when I found out about the grey M&M."

"Well what is it?"

"As a promotional gimmick they put out twenty grey M&Ms. Each one was worth one million dollars."

"Wow."

"Wow in deed. I used to occassionally end up with an extra bag of M&Ms in my apron when I was leaving work and would ride home munching. After learning that it occurred to me that it was probably pretty stupid to eat them in the dark and I started driving home with my interior light on. Well, my wife, Carmela, has a friend named Mary who she works with every day. She's a good hearted woman raising three teenage daughters by herself and she is a tremendous ditz. No offense meant but the woman doesn't have all her oars in the water, if you know what I mean. Her elevator doesn't go quite to the top floor. Sure enough, one day Mary is eating M&Ms and finds a grey one."

"No way. What did she do?"

"She had never heard of the grey M&M promotion but she did think it was strange. She set it aside, put it in her purse and intended to show it to my wife when she saw her the next morning. Well, wouldn't you know, despite seeing Carmela every day that grey M&M sat in that purse, digging deeper and deeper into its clutter. About two weeks later, Mary was cleaning out her pocketbook when out popped the grey M&M. One of her daughters saw it and said,

'Mom, you have a grey M&M'

'I know, isn't that the strangest thing?'

'Mom, that's worth one million dollars'"

"Well, of course Mary thought her kid was just playing with her but eventually she was persuaded to pick up the phone and call my wife."

'Carmela, my little Nicky seems to think that I have an M&M that's worth a million dollars.'

'You found the grey one!!?' my wife exclaimed.

"Mary and my wife proceeded to freak out, screaming and yelling. Mary promised to buy my wife a house and planned out her whole, new glorious future. She hung up so that she could call the Mars Corporation and find out how to collect her fortune. When she dialed their number she got a recording telling her that the business offices were closed untill the next morning. After a restless night Mary called again. The Mars Corporation spokesman confirmed that indeed the bearer of the grey M&M was entitled to a one million dollar prize. Mary asked what she needed to do to collect the million dollars. She was told that she simply had to bring to their offices the M&M and its original package which contained the serial number proving the M&Ms authenticity."

"Great, so she became a millionaire."

"No, not at all, the original package was long gone. If she had shown it to my wife the next day, like she had intended, they could have dug it out of the garbage but two weeks later...it was gone and so was the money. That million dollars melted in her purse not in her hand."