Last month archaeologist Cage Lotharios was barely making it as a poor as dirt graduate student of Stanford University working in the field. This month he is looking into buying a Lexus and a house in Hollywood Hills.
According to Cage it was good luck and not his education that brought him the great wealth. In fact this weekend he burned his diploma in a farewell gesture to a university he said was cultivated by snobbery of the nouveau riche. Cage indicated he would rather sink into a deep dark hole rather than go back to Stanford.
Of course that is exactly what happened to make Cage the phenomenal fortune he has now. Originally the son of a peasant farmer and a mother who worked as a cafeteria worker in the university, where she was often told she looked like just Gina Lollobrigida. Both immigrants from Italy, Cage's mother helped Cage get his much needed education by appealing to the dean of admissions. The dean who was a fan of Lollobrigida was at first reluctant to help, finally repented to grant Cage admission after a story appeared in a gossip magazine which maintained the married dean had been seen with Gina Lollobrigida. But was later reported false.
Before Cages schooling could begin he first had to be released from jail where he had been held since 2004 on a drunken driving and disorderly conduct charge. "We were much too poor to pay the high fines for the offence" says Cage's mother, Maria Lotharios. Maria offered to cook at the jail to help her son be released, but said she was told by the jailer he was worried Maria might try to help her son escape.
When contacted for this story the spokesperson for the jail stated prisoners do most of the cooking. He did make the remark that Maria baked a fine cake except for the hacksaw blade. Maria said that was part of her family recipe. It would bring good luck and was much akin to a king cake baby in the little village her and her husband immigrated from. Shouting through the bars during our visit, another inmate said Cage was a dirty low down who probably should fall into a hole. Maria said she was glad to see her son leave. The Lotharios family always maintained it was a clerical error that put their son there to begin with.
After release from jail, Cage still had to receive his high school diploma. Almost three years behind, he astonishingly received his equivalency diploma from the adult education center when his father, Johnas Lotharios, intervened with the local educational authorities. Almost three weeks after a story appeared about inquires into tips about illegal poker games being secretly conducted near the adult education center Johnas provided an alibi for Guy Gambrel who had been suspected of illegal gambling on the center grounds and who was subsequently cleared. Gambrel who is now friends with Johnas said he had never seen anyone learn as quickly as Cage did. "The boy is a genius like his daddy, smart as a cardsharp", said Gambrel.
According to Cage Lotharios, it was with his Daddy's help he graduated. "If my Daddy had never helped Mr. Gambrel see how much I needed that diploma I would never had moved up that quickly." Limited by funds for books Mr. Gambrel paved the way for Cage's studies by donating one thousand dollars for books and bargaining for his release from jail.
Four weeks later Cage was presented his diploma and trying for acceptance into Stanford. "I guess third time is lucky", said Cage, "Momma always said I would get admission even if she had to beg the dean." Moving through his studies quicker that expected, Cage was prompted to begin to consider foreign work in the field. The dean of Stanford said he felt Cage would be far better off actually working with dirt instead of in a classroom.
Once located in a remote area where previous digs had failed to reveal any historic treasure, Cage begin to study the site. Cage states "For hours I would sit and consider the great civilization that at one time lived in this barren wasteland." For at least six months Cage remained on the site until according to Cage, who was working alone from the beginning, a breakthrough came. "I was sittin' there on a crate like usual, almost done with my chicken box when all of a sudden, Whoomph I was about thirty feet down in the dark. It was smelly and I couldn't hold on very good. I grabbed out to try to get my balance and that's when I found it."
What Cage actually found was a prehistoric lemur jaw. Using the jaw to help him climb upwards of the slippery wall, he emerged into daylight. "I knew then I was going to go back to the States and home." He relayed his hunger for more education, "I needed to get back in the classroom" said Cage.
Once back, his old school life fell into a regular pace and the lemur jaw was forgotten. It was probably not of any great value stated the school's chief archaeologist. That is, until the local Catholic priest visited the Lotharios home on Saturday afternoon three weeks ago. Startled to see the bone on the coffee table where Maria had placed it because she was so proud of her son, Father Scrawl Bel noticed something funny about the jaw and one of the teeth.
According to certified Virgin Mary sightings expert Kerf Utica, the tooth is now documented to be one of the ten most significant images to date of the Holy Virgin Mary. Utica says it has probably more significance than the Shroud of Turin and is on par with the image of the Virgin Mary recently seen on toast, sandwiches and doughnuts. Collectors quickly rallied to try to purchase the tooth. Cage thought the tooth might bring a few thousand dollars but "I never realized it was worth forty million dollars."
Now Cage and his family are all excited about their good fortune and celebrating. Cage said now that he has plans to buy the house he looked at this week, he will help his parents also buy a new home. "I guess this was like the Holy Tooth Fairy came to help me", said Gage. The whole Lotharios family is now considering moving the rest of their family from the old country. The Dean of Stanford is somehow not surprised, nor are many of Cage's old schoolmates, one of which said "Some people have all the luck".
'Ain't it the tooth.'
