Thursday, November 23, 2006

loser!

lost and found tag

When I made my recent list of what the seven dwarves would be if the story was staged in my brain, I did not include "Loser." But maybe that was an omission, or at least would be the added dwarf if the story morphed from "Snow White" to "Eight Is Enough." Because, whoa, am I a loser. Not in the broad sense where y'all should be worried about my self-esteem, but in the literal sense of someone who loses things. Whenver I see that bumper sticker that says "Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most," I think the person clearly has not lost the things I've lost. Of all the things I've lost, I miss my iPod the most. Or, maybe my last cel phone. Or, maybe the cel phone before that. Or, maybe one of the 183 stocking caps, 327 umbrellas, or 978 pairs of gloves I've lost over the years. I bought a new blazer this month; if not for someone chasing after me, I would have left it in the room where I gave my talk in Dallas. The lost-and-found tag above is for the man-purse that someone found in the hotel, which if not for someone's honesty would have resulted in the loss of my digital camera (yeah, Mom, the one you gave me) and my wrestling mask (yeah, Sal, the one you gave me).

Tonight: I had Thanksgiving with a friend in Dorchester, which involved a 45 minute subway ride. On the ride home I was reading Jon Elster's Nuts and Bolts for the Social Sciences. I walked directly from the train station home. I get home, and I realize the book is gone. Did I somehow leave it behind on the train? Did I drop it? Did it self-destruct? Did it fall into the same strange spatiotemporal fold that also holds roughly 25% of the would-be-reimbursable travel receipts I accumulate over the course of a professional trip? Who knows?

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