This is a story about one special soap bubble. And about regret.

When I was in college, I lived in a rented house with three other 
students‎. One evening after dinner, I was at the sink washing dishes 
when a soap bubble floated up into the air, probably pulled aloft by an 
air current in the kitchen.  Nothing too special, but it lingered in the 
air long enough to be conspicuous, so it caught my attention. And then
it floated over my shoulder and out of the kitchen.

Out of curiosity, I followed the bubble to see how far it would go 
before it popped.  Well it didn't pop, not right away. ‎ It floated 
towards the stairs and slowly descended down into the basement. I 
thought it was pretty unusual that the bubble had made it this far 
(although I'd really never paid attention to soap bubles before, and I 
didn't have much to compare it with), so down the stairs I followed.

At this point, it must have been a good thirty seconds since the bubble 
‎had left the kitchen sink‎. And that meant that there really was 
something unusual about this bubble.

The bubble seemed to hesitate at the bottom of the stairs, and I 
hesitated too, realizing for a second the absurdity of me following a 
soap bubble around the house. But then it started moving again, and I 
was compelled to follow. I followed it into the main room of the 
basement and across to the far wall, to the complete opposite side of 
the house.  This must be the longest-lived dishsoap bubble in history 
-- and I was witnessing it!

‎Then, near the back wall of the basement, the bubble slowly sank down 
toward the floor.  And popped. 

And just like that, the bubble was no more.

I stared at the spot on the floor for a second and then snapped out of 
my quasi-hypnotic trance‎, realizing how silly I was to be following a 
soap bubble around the house. No other reason for being in the basement, 
I went back upstairs to finish washing dishes.  Heh.  Brief lapse of 
sanity.

I told this story to a friend of mine some weeks later. What a great 
story to tell over some beers, right? (Or not.) His response wasn't 
mocking at all, though. Instead he egged me on. "Dude, you should have 
dug a hole in the floor where that bubble popped. There must be a 
treasure or the solution to some great crime buried there. That bubble 
was a sign!"

I thought my own story was funny enough, but his response really made me 
laugh.

But I should have dug through the floor. And all these years later, I 
regret not having done it.

(Of course, it was a rental house, and I'm sure the landlord would not 
have appreciated a hole in his basement floor.)