Loss Leader

Whoops, I missed a day. But I made it halfway through the month! I'm choosing to call that a victory.

I think I have a problem. Behold, if you will, the things I have lost in the past few weeks, in and around town here in the middle of nowhere in southwest Kansas. I count “lost” as “unable to find for at least 24 hours even after extensive searching.”

My cell phone charger

My eyeglasses

My clip-on sunglasses

My laptop power cord

My iPod

Here’s how the recovery process went.

Cell phone charger. Wedged between the passenger seat and the console of my car, accessible only via impressive body contortions. I swore it wasn’t there.

Eyeglasses. This was serious. My eyesight, perfect into my 30s, has deteriorated so utterly that driving at night without them is impossible. But my glasses were gone. Cowboy and I deduced that I could have left them in the library, the town restaurant, or the grocery store. He got as far as calling the restaurant when it occurred to him to check my office again, which, of course, I had already thoroughly combed through. (As had he, it’s worth noting.) But on his second sweep, there they were, on the floor, just waiting to be stepped on or rolled over by a wayward Aeron chair.

Clip-on sunglasses. When Cowboy got sick of my complaining about being unable to see with my sunglasses on (the sun is bright here, yo, year-round), he suggested clip-ons. I won’t get prescription sunglasses on principle, because unquestionably, inside of five seconds of ownership I’ll sit on them (or roll over them with a wayward Aeron chair). The idea of clip-ons repulsed me. I pictured Dwayne Wayne and professed a firm No way. But apparently I’m way behind the technological times when it comes to clip-on sunglasses. These babies are magnetic – no “clipping” necessary – and are so unobtrusive you can’t tell they aren’t regular sunglasses. Except I can see through them. So I am a clip-on convert. But of course, as I’d known I would eventually, I lost them. Not to be found anywhere after days and days of looking. Sixty freakin’ dollars to replace. Ouch.

Laptop power cord. I have no idea how this had disappeared. I had a very, very distinct memory of wrapping it up in the library as I got up to leave, winding it around so it would sit snugly at the bottom of my backpack. “Maybe you didn’t put it in your backpack,” Cowboy gently suggested. “There is no way I would wind it up and not put it in my backpack,” I retorted. Of course, that is in fact just what I did. Cowboy called the library and they said, yep, the cord is right here behind the desk. Lucky for both of us, he’s never said “I told you so” -- and he won’t start now.

iPod. This, too, just seemed to vanish. I tore my purse apart, my backpack, the inside of my car. Four thousand songs, gone. “Maybe you left it in the gym,” Cowboy suggested. “I didn’t leave it in the gym,” I shot back. But the next time I went to work out, I slunk into the front office, almost like an afterthought. “I don’t suppose anyone happened to turn in an iPod?” I said, practically apologizing for asking. Yup, they had. Go look -- it’s right inside the door of the gym, in the cabinet, waiting for the owner to pick it up. Which I did.

Seriously, would that happen anywhere else? A freakin' Nano.

I gotta get over this. I swear, my brain has maxed out. It’s to the point where if anything is added in, something's gotta fall out.