Those were the loving words my mother would always yell at me if I'd misplace something: my school books, my wallet, my important papers. I can't blame her for losing patience with me; I have always been perpetually scatter-brained. Although I have never had to look for my head, it's my mind I've lost on a few occassions. Decades later I still have the same problem: Keys, wallet, dog leashes, work badge often are misplaced.
"If you'd put your wallet in the same place every day after work you'd always kniow where it is!" Kevin says. That's easy for him to say because I always forget what that same place is!
I've gotten better over the years putting things in common areas but every now and then I still fail at finding stuff. Even at work I always make sure my wallet is in my front pocket, my keys are in my bag, etc. I also do the same thing while hiking; I'd hate to lose my keys somewhere at 9000 feet.
So last weekend I did the usual gear check multiple times while on a hike. Keys? Check. Cell phone? Check. Wallet? Check. This was a slow, social hike where we enjoyed a group picnic afterwards. When I got home I removed my pocket's contents and showered because K and I were going to a high school graduation for his best friend's daughter in Bisbee.
And now I honestly can't remember if I drove off with my wallet with me. I had my cell phone and camera, as usual, but the wallet...I simply don't know.
The next day I needed to drive into town for a quick errand and couldn't find my wallet. I drove into town without it, but was determined to look for the thing when I got home.
I couldn't find it anywhere. All my usual places in the house proved futile. It wasn't in the bathroom, it wasn't on the microwave, it wasn't by the front door, it wasn't around my cluttered computer desk, which, honestly, could be declared an abyss. It also wasn't locked up in my glove compartment, although I looked all over the truck several days and was even forced to clean out my truck in search of my wallet and all I found were gas receipts from Charlestown, WV where gas was $1.74 on August 17, 2004.
I refused to believe I had actually LOST my wallet. It had to be somewhere, ANYWHERE, so I did a thorough cleansing of my truck, which, I must admit, was already a few years past due. I must have removed several pounds of sand and dog fur from the crevices of my truck.
By Day Three of the missing wallet I started panicking. I probably lost it somwhere, perhaps when I stopped my truck on the way home from Bisbee that night to photograph the night scene of the city lights in the distance.
By Day Four I gave up the search and planned on getting all my documents replaced: drivers license, retired military ID card, credit card. I dreaded calling up my credit card because the last time I had to call them to report fraudulent use, the issuer lowered my credit limit by $7000. I was determined to postpone this for as long as possible. But this also meant that any roadtrip anywhere would have to be cancelled or postponed until the essentials were replaced.
By Day Five a critical day had arrived. K was leaving for a few days in Phoenix where his daughter had flown in to visit for a few days. I would be all alone in this house with three goofy dogs, one blood-thirsty cat and a geriatric Siamese with "special needs." Oh joy. And although I love having the house to myself for several days--I can play Italian rock songs or my Germans Tagesschau as loud as possible and not have him yell at me to "TURN THAT SHIT DOWN!"--I also wouldn't have anyone to talk to or eat dinner with. It was back to microwaved Swiss cheese tortillas and green pea soups for a while.
As the final moment came where K was ready to leave, he said out loud from the hallway "Hey Connie, come here, I want to show you something."
Oh uh. The last time he said THAT it turned out to be a turd in the middle of my office.
I hesitantly walked over to where K stood in the hallway, his right arm pointing to something in my office. He was smiling widely.
There is was, my wallet. It was laying on the backside of my little TV, black-on-black, well camouflaged. It was not exactly in one of its regular places, and I don't even remember putting it there, a condition I seem to find myself more in lately anyway. A big relief came over me. YAY! No long line at the DMV, no calling the credit card issuer AGAIN about a new card, no having to replace my military ID card and having to deal with grumpy government workers.
What was it that George Carlin said about looking for lost things? "When you lose something, the longer you look for it, the stranger the places are that you are looking. ...You know why? You've already looked in the easy places. Those are the first places we look, the obvious places. That's why people say to each other, 'Well, I've looked everywhere.' Well, apparently NOT...the...damn thing is still gone, isn't it?!? Let's keep looking in obvious places. I'll look in the furnace, you check the cesspool." Carlin forgot to mention the back of TVs.
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