I am not a loser. I am an interim misplacer of absent cartage.

I rather like to think of myself as more of a collector of memorabilia than a loser of trivia. Over the years I have amassed an impressive collection of, amongst other things, kats, dragons, matchbooks, jobs, ex-boyfriends, reading glasses, vampire books, and wine corks. Admittedly, I have also lost a few things along the way . . . multiple jobs, my youth, my temper, several rounds of roulette, my mind. I have lost friends to the Grim Reaper, lovers due to incompatibility, and one wonderful husband due to my inability to face my own fear of intimacy. I once found my patience only to misplace it again a moment later. I have had things borrowed from me and not returned . . . cash loans, brollies [that’s the British nickname for “umbrella”, please make a note of it as you will be needing it in the near future], and various CDs. I have had things stolen from me . . . my emerald ring, my time, my heart. I have given things away not expecting to get them back . . . unopened condoms, my friendship, a cup of sugar. I have shared things that I at least hoped would be treated well . . . my body, my hospitality, my humour. There have been times that I have given away things that I felt were best not a part of my life . . . unhealthy relationships, bad habits, robbing the blind. There are things I would very much like to lose . . . starting with that pesky seven pounds of middle-age spread.

So as you can see, I am very much a giver, and not a loser. It is extremely rare that I lose anything. I am very much a creature of habit and I make it a point to always place things in the same location so that I will always know where to find them. I can pretty much count on one hand the number of things I have actually lost on a permanent basis, as opposed to temporarily misplaced only to find again sooner or later . . . precious things such as my virginity, a water-colour painting of a vampire Pink Panther custom-painted just for me by the original artist, and the Ray-Ban sunglasses I owned for the past decade or so. Said sunglasses literally disappeared somewhere between my car and the fifteen feet or so to my front door. I distinctly remember picking them up from the console and … well … I don’t remember what I did with them then, but as a creature of habit, I am convinced . . . almost-positive . . . well, fairly confident anyway that I would have put them into my bag. I did not hear any sound indicative of a pair of long-beloved sunglasses hitting the ground as I walked to my door. Yet when I next looked for my sunglasses, there they were — gone!!!! I retraced every inch of my route from the door to the car and back and there immediately failed to find my sunglasses lying woefully scratched and lonely upon the filthy concrete. I dismantled the car from bonnet to boot and found nothing but car stuff and engine parts. I tore apart the soulless little concrete box that passes for home from wall to heartless wall; even searching in the most ridiculously unlikely places — behind the refridgerator, in the litter tray, under the living room rug, inside the dragon urn, etc. — and found not a pair of sunglasses. I emptied my backpack and examined it pocket-by-pocket and stitch-by-stitch. No sunglasses. What irks me the most is not so much the losing of the object as the not knowing where it is!!! For a person who is so careful and deliberate and habitual it is just downright insulting to have something so rudely removed from my possession. It is the sheer inconvenience of finding myself without the item that I need at that exact moment. I cannot begin to describe how much I treasured those sunglasses; they were a classic Ray-Ban design — reminiscent of a 1950s-type of hip. The type of style that never really goes in or out of fashion, which is what I look for in sunglasses. I do not give a damn whether big glasses are fashionable this year or not. I could not care any less whether my sunglasses are old-fashioned or new-fashioned or any-fashioned. I just want them to fit without mangling my long eyelashes, protect my eyes from damaging sun-rays, look good on me even though I can’t see them on myself, and most importantly, allow me to keep my eyes open outdoors. I have extraordinarily light-sensitive eyes and can rarely go outdoors on even the cloudiest day without eye protection. So you can see why this loss was of such magnitude to me.

Eventually I will find those misplaced sunglasses — perhaps a year or ten from now — probably buried in my underwear drawer. Until then I have come to terms with my loss after having held a brief moment of silence for my much-missed MIA sunglasses. Thanks to Sam and, in particular, to his Club, I now have four new pairs of sunglasses purchased on credit and at a remarkably low price for a designer brand. If I continue my streak of losing one pair per decade, I should be just fine.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 2nd, 2007 at 4:49 pm and is filed under Humour, Reflective. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.