If you go to all the work to acquire a trophy, don't leave it in a pool of acid.

Imagine going to great lengths to acquire a trophy: a prize that everyone knows is valuable.

But then after you acquire it you leave it in a broom closet, out of sight.

In the broom closet, some caustic cleaning chemicals are slowly leaking, and drip on the trophy.

A few months later you open the broom closet and see the now-misshapen trophy.

"Well, I guess the trophy wasn't as good as people thought it was," and you chuck it.

But the problem was not the trophy, it was the acid!