Beck Tells the Epically Tragic -- and Funny -- Story of How His Orson Welles-Signed Fishbowl Was Ruined by... the Cleaning Lady

The road to destruction is paved with good intentions.* Glenn Beck learned that the hard way this week. But what was destroyed and how might surprise you.

What am I talking about? His new, prized Orson Welles fishbowl, of course (Beck's company, Mercury, is named after Welles's company.) Beck explained on radio that he had just received the bowl -- hand-painted and signed by Welles -- on Monday after he won it via auction. He just so happened to leave it on his desk overnight, and during a meeting Tuesday morning noticed something odd: the fishbowl had been washed and wiped nearly clean -- most of the images were gone and the signature were gone. As Beck explained, the cleaning lady decided to go above-and-beyond her duties and clean the dirty fishbowl. Only, the bowl was meant to stay that way.

That explanation, however, doesn't do justice do the story. Watch Beck describe the tragic, yet hilarious, tale below:

You might have noticed the Beck took the news pretty well. He admitted that if this would have happened in his past life he would have been much angrier and likely would have had her fired. Instead, he placed much of the blame on himself and praised the cleaner for her drive.

"I can't be pissed at her," he said. "Here's somebody who wants to go above and beyond. Here's somebody who wants to do the right thing. Somebody who saw a fishbowl that looks like hadn't been cleaned since 1940. And took it in and washed it -- scrubbed the signature, scrubbed all the little fishies."

"That is one clean fishbowl now," his co-host, Pat, said.

Glennbeck.com has an image what the fishbowl looked like before the cleaning:

But the saga doesn't end there. Later in the show, Beck's co-hosts prodded him to auction off the cleaned-up version and give the proceeds to Restoring Love. There is now a section on Beck's site where you can place a bid. If the bid gets high enough -- Pat suggested a $5K reserve -- it could happen. Go to Glennbeck.com and tell Beck how much you would pay for it as is.

*The original meaning of this old proverb is that inaction leads to tragedy. Here we're using the phrase in a more actual sense: a good-intentioned act led to the ruin of something.