Object Permanence III

 Cresting the hill, I noticed something was missing. Or to be more precise, I noticed something different. There was a breeze on my right hindquarters. That shouldn't be. That area is specifically protected by my shorts, my undies, and the wallet in my back pocket.

No. Not again. 

Those were the words that raced through my head as I stopped pedaling my bike and began to turn around. I did the quick frisk of myself to be sure that I hadn't absently stuffed my billfold in the wrong pocket or maybe I had simply lost touch with the nerves on my back end. 

No such luck. My wallet was missing. Again. After being reunited with my errant pochette two weeks ago, my stomach did a Fosbury Flop as I resigned myself to the slow trip back to school, staring at the street, peering under cars, searching for signs of what I had apparently once again taken for granted. After all, what were the chances that I would be in the exact same position less than a month after that most recent trauma.

Did you guess one hundred percent? You'd be right.

All the way back to school, I alternately ridiculed myself and began to reconcile the disappointment that was building inside of me. I cursed this unnecessary waste of time and the pinhead who had caused it. Then I reminded myself that I now had a spare wallet with a duplicate card which had arrived just days before the last time I was surprised by that which was once lost was found. 

It was not the end of the world. It was the end of a day that had otherwise been quite productive and gratifying. But all that gratification came tumbling down in an instant. Woe is me. How could this be happening to me? Why me?

So I called my wife and asked her to poke around the house to see if somehow I had misplaced my wallet before I even left. Anxious moments drifted by as I waited on the line. Nope. Not there. Not in all the places where it could or might be. 

I went back over all the places where I had been at school that day and retraced steps I hadn't taken for a week. Just in case. The wallet was not there. So once again, I got on my bike and started the creep back up the hill, looking once again at every shadow and piece of trash that might be my wallet in disguise. Once I got back up to the top of the hill, I resigned myself to the rest of the ride home, fretting and consoling myself, at times out loud. 

When I arrived at home, I looked carefully in all the spots outside the house where something like my wallet could just slip out of a pocket and go unnoticed for a day. No luck. Inside, I went to all those spots that made sense and many that did not. Then I checked at the back of my closet.

This is where I toss my clothes for the next day, since I tend to get dressed in the dark each morning. And in the shadows of the late afternoon, I put my hand on the cool leather rectangle that suddenly made everything right with the world again. I had spent an hour and a half berating myself and making plans to phone the credit card companies and file for a new driver's license. Now I felt the weight lifting. The light returned. I had just manufactured this enormous catharsis out of a missing object. I made note of the baggy shorts that had allowed the wallet to come sliding out of my back pocket. Embarrassed and relieved, I put the wallet in a safe place. Where I knew where it was.