Saturday, March 10, 2007

I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For

Thursday morning, for 90-minutes, I lost my wallet. Well I lost the little zippered purse that I use as a wallet. It was not in my pocket book, it was not in the book bag, it was not in the car, it was not in my coat pocket. It was nowhere. I panicked and called Ken at work. As if that would help, now he was panicked too. I asked my older son if he'd seen it.
"Oh that. Yeah. Nope. I haven't seen that."
My only hope was I'd left it at the little library Wednesday after we checked out books. Of course the little library isn't open on Thursdays so I had to call the main library and ask around for my "little library" friends. Deep down I knew that they didn't find my wallet because if they had, they would have opened it, found my license, and called me. I usually get phone calls from the little library several times a week since I "rent" all my movies through the CLAMS network. But I asked the question anyway, even though I already knew the answer. Cat was genuinely concerned. I knew she would be. She is so nice. We decided the wallet must have fallen out of the book bag in the back of the library near the story-time room, but my fear by now was that I'd left it on top of my car and driven off. I've lost sunglasses, a diaper bag (yes, a whole diaper bag), H's shoes, a hat, and various other objects off the roof of the car. That doesn't include the many times I've left my travel cup up there brimming with tea. It's a terrible habit but when buckle the kids in, there's nowhere else to put my stuff. This is why I feel bad for the dad who left his kid in the shopping cart at the Burlington Coat Factory. I'm not saying it's excusable, and if I wasn't a parent I wouldn't be able to understand it at all, but, I can see how it could have happened.
Back to the wallet. I got everyone dressed and out the door. By this time we'd missed music class because I couldn't get it together in time to go, not to mention I could never have concentrated through three verses of "Shoe a little horse, shoe a little mare, but let the little pony go bare, bare, bare" or any other kiddie songs. My plan now was to drive over to the library and check the parking lot for my wallet. I was even prepared to peep through the windows and look for a glimpse of it.
I opened the top glove compartment to fish out some lip gloss and there was the wallet - right on top. I'd checked the car twice! Twice! How could I not have opened this compartment?
Turning the car around, I drove home and called Ken. Then I called Cat so she and Laurie wouldn't be looking for the wallet on Friday. Cat said she appealed to St. Anthony on my behalf. Obviously, it had worked. Then I went back to the car and drove the kids to the little library anyway. It was 30-degrees out, warm enough to run them around the tennis courts for an hour.
So, it turned out that all I really lost was my morning - and a little bit of my mind.

song: I still haven't found what I'm looking for • artist: U2

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