Lost and Found

My husband came home from work yesterday complaining that, although he's never been particularly organized, he had good enough recall to make up for it, but now that he's getting older and things at work are getting more and more crazy, his system (or lack thereof) is not working as well. He said he's at the stage where he recognizes this but isn't yet prepared to do anything about it, which is something I respect and understand.

I've never been particularly well organized either, and I lose things quite often. Now that I'm increasingly convinced that I have ADD, this makes a little more sense, and I've put a few things in place that make it not quite as bad - I keep receipts in the top drawer of the dresser by the entrance, and it's been quite a while since I've needed a receipt to return something and not been able to find it (this used to happen ALL THE TIME). The receipts do eventually overflow and I have to go through them and throw out the old ones, and this doesn't happen as often as it should, but still. Improvement.

When I was in school, I would lost things constantly, and was constantly in trouble for it. I don't even think I was that much worse than my sister, but she was smart enough to always claim that things were stolen, and somehow this worked for her. 

When the kids started going to school, I taped clipboards up inside the cupboard doors and stuck every school-related memo there as it came home - this is one tip I got from a parenting magazine which was invaluable, and saved my ass on numerous occasions. 

Lately, with Covid anxiety and perimenopause hammering my brain hard, and with my husband being the same scattered person he's always been, we have become an elite squad at losing things: these are our stories.

A few weeks back, I was in the midst of an extended period of alone time. Matt was away for four days, home for two and then away for ten. I often enjoy a few days of alone time, but I was feeling a bit weird for how long I had gone without talking to another human being. I had some kind of medical appointment and ran a couple of errands in the morning, and I got home feeling hot and frazzled. I didn't really want to walk Lucy, but I felt like I should, so I leashed her up and we started walking.

We went around the park and I was starting to feel like a walk had actually been a good idea (as I usually do), when I realized that her leash was around my wrist but my key strap wasn't. 

Oh. Fuck.

I retraced our steps quickly. No sign of them. So this meant I couldn't get back into my house, and my husband was out of the country. Also, if anyone picked them up, the key fob to the Rav was on them, and my house key. So that was awesome.

First things first, I went home, and discovered I had left the back sliding door open the last time I let Lucy out. Not smart, but good. Then I called the car dealership and verified that I could come in and they would turn off my key fob. I used Matt's key to drive to the dealership and get that done. I figured I'd wait a few days to look at changing the house locks, because I hadn't lost the keys right in front of the house and now they couldn't find which house it was easily. So it was all manageable, and I just felt dumb and embarrassed.

A few days later, Matt called from California, because someone had found my keys by the mailbox (which is a place I hadn't walked by, so, mysterious) and called the Toyota Rewards phone number on the tag that I didn't even know was on them. Some woman in Salt Lake City called me to tell me I could pick up my keys at the end of the street. Now that I'm typing this, I recall that I never baked them the thank-you biscuits I meant to, and I should get on that.

A few weeks before THAT, Matt was in the states watching Angus play one of his last baseball games at Elmira, so Eve and I were home alone (which means it was a few months, I guess). She was going to walk Lucy (which seems to be a common theme in losing things, now that I think about it) and asked me to pass down her airpods from upstairs. I was reaching them down to her, but dropped them the last few inches, and the case bounced off her hand and hit the floor, launching the airpods god knows where in the living room.

We were searching desperately, and once again I was feeling like a primo dickhead, and found one just as Matt got home. He asked if we'd used the 'find my iwhatever' feature, which I didn't even know was a thing for airpods, and assumed if it was it would only work for the case. I was already researching how much a single airpod would cost to replace. But we used the 'find my' thing and damned if the little sucker didn't start chiming, which thank living god because it had bounced up onto the SHELF of the dresser by the entrance and was hiding behind a chunk of amethyst, and we would NEVER have found it otherwise.

Then Matt started laughing and told us about his loser story, which was that he was in Elmira and realized he didn't have his US credit card. The only place he could think of that he might have left it was Hairy Tony's, the gastro pub we always go to on our drive home from Elmira. So he stopped there on his drive home and hell if the guy (not Tony) didn't open the cash drawer and pull out his credit card.

Then last week or whatever when I was in Hamilton with Eve and then went to Barrie and went shopping with Zarah, I realized I didn't have my credit card. I instantly knew where it was - we had dropped Eve at her house and gotten gas on the corner, and I had thought it was weird that they didn't tell me to remove my credit card before I started pumping the gas. I was worried that it would cancel the transaction if I took my card out, so I didn't, and then naturally I forgot to get it at the end because it wasn't my usual routine.

As soon as I realized where it must be, I called, and fortunately the guy said right away that they had it. It was amazingly fortuitous that it was also steps from Eve's house so she could grab it for me.

And now, for the pièce de résistance of I Am a Giant Loser stories...

In the course of cleaning the mountain of crap off the table in the laundry room, I saw a tote bag. As I pulled it out of the pile, I realized it was a Fluevogs bag.

F

luevogs are Canadian-designed, art-deco inspired, exquisitely beautiful shoes which I frequently visit and lust after. "How odd," I thought, "Why on earth would I have a Fluevogs bag? I don't have Fluevogs. I only dream of owning Fluevogs". I stood there holding the bag, as the dawning horror and wonder began to wash over me.

You guys. I do have Fluevogs.

When Zarah (HI ZARAH) and her daughter were here last fall, we went shopping in the market and we went to the Fluevog store and these Doc Marten-like boots were on sale and I bought them for Matt to give me for Christmas.

Last Christmas. 

And then I stowed them away and I didn't just lose them. I wiped them from my mind entirely. It would have been great because they would have been a total surprise on Christmas morning, except that obviously Matt forgot too.

How. HOW COULD I HAVE FLUEVOGS AND NOT REMEMBER.

Not only that, but I only had the bag. I had no idea where the actual boots were.

It was also late at night, so I couldn't tear the house apart looking for them without Matt thinking I was insane more insane than than usual. 

I found them the next day. I had actually stared at the box a few times before I realized what it was. They were in the downstairs closet, which is actually a completely logical and reasonable place for them to be (that's probably what threw me off). They are still there, and the idea is that I will give them to Matt to give to me this Christmas, because that plan worked so well last time. 

What do they look like? You'll have to wait until after Christmas. If I don't post a picture, somebody remind me I should have gotten Fluevogs for Christmas, okay?