MEDFORD, MA The excavators working on the backside of the hill, who have been clearing tons of soil and rock for the construction of a the new energy plant, were not expecting to discover a bona fide piece of Charles Tufts, the founder of Tufts University.

“We were just diggin’ up a bunch of stuff by the big smokestack so that we could put in a bigger smokestack,” said Greg Miller, a contract employee of Lungar & Sons Construction, “but outta nowhere Rick hits something with his shovel [excavator] and we stop and check it out. It’s all covered in jewels and when Rick picks it up, a beam of sunshine came down and lit the whole area up and a bush was on fire and the whole thing just felt very Catholic, y’know?”

What Rick had happened upon was the jeweled reliquary containing the right index finger of the venerable Charles Tufts’s sacred body. This artifact had been missing since 1901, when it disappeared as part of a heist orchestrated by the college’s then-rival, the Christ College Nimby-Pambies. How the finger was returned to the campus is unknown at this time.

“After Rick found the finger, I was visited in a dream by the visage of Charles Tufts astride an abused elephant,” Greg recounted, “and he said unto me: ‘Greg! I beseech thee, sell not my finger on eBay. The fetching price it will gain you will be extracted sevenfold from your soul upon the judgement day. Go now my son, and secure for it a proper resting place so that weary pilgrims may be bathed in its holy aura,’” Greg recounted.

At the time of writing, the eBay auction had reached $4,350 with twelve days remaining.