Oh Where, Oh Where?

My wallet disappeared on Friday, my leather black and red Lodis wallet suggested by a friend on a November shopping spree in 2004, my wallet with the pull out license and credit card insert that fits perfectly into a jean hip pocket, my wallet with its debit card, two credit cards, membership cards, my license, and 18 dollars.  AWOL!

I discovered my wallet's absence on Monday morning at 10:30 when, at Kinko's the salesclerk said, "That will be eleven dollars and forty-three cents." A woman fishing into her purse knows what is there; hers is a confident, familiar act, her hand like eyes. My husband would have to dump my bag upside down to find a rock in it.  I can find a stray menthol lozenge in a split second.

"Oops!"  I said.  "Must have left my wallet on my desk.  I will be right back."  And so it began, the spinning search for the wallet.

Life must go on.  One cannot push a pause button to look for a wallet.  My day took off without the wallet, sans identification and money.  Instead of focusing on the business at hand, my mind slipped into replay mode:  Where had I been?  I sent texts to friends.  Maybe they had seen it.

"Sorry.  Haven't seen it."

The wallet's absence sliced through Monday's schedule, serious discussions at a board meeting, companionable conversations with friends, a dinner party, and an evening concert.  It was bedtime before I could look under sofas, through pockets, and into cabinets.  Defeated, I slept fitfully.

Tuesday's sunrise woke me.  Typically, not an early bird, I jolted out of bed and renewed the ruminant search.  No activity had occurred on our bank accounts, so the wallet was secure, but secure where?  Behind the washer and dryer.  Under a bag in the car.  On the deck.  In the greenhouse.  Beneath a boxwood shrub.  Maybe our pup had carried it off.  Under beds.  Into closets. To his bed.

By noon I had given up.  "I'm gonna have to put a stop on all the cards," I said to my husband who was quietly finishing a turkey sandwich.  I had spent lunchtime reviewing for him my replayed scenes from Friday.  He said nothing.

I dialed the bank's number.

"Stop!  Found it!"  And there it was, in his hand, my precious wallet -- ice cold.  "Found it in the freezer."

Honestly, there is a logical explanation.  A frozen pork loin, a distracted mind, etcetera.

But..

As one friend said, "I have been meaning to talk with you about your habit of wearing your bra on the outside of your blouse...just saying."

......
“Your own brain ought to have the decency to be on your side!”
― Terry Pratchett, Wintersmith