“ Then there was Aunt Sarah Shoaf, who never went to bed at night without the fear that a burglar was going to get in and blow chloroform under her floor through a tube. To avert this calamity - for she was in greater dread of anesthetics than of losing her household goods - she always piled her money, silverware and other valuables in a neat stack just outside her bedroom with a note reading: “This is all I have. Please take it and do not use your chloroform, as this is all I have.
— James Thurber, From “The Night The Bed Fell”
3.10.08