The Missing Checkbook

I was getting frantic.  I hadn't seen the checkbook for over a week and was beginning to think that it was lost and not just misplaced.  I spent the last two days tearing up the house searching.  As a result, my laundry room has never looked better.  Good news!  The checkbook was not under the washing machine.

It wasn't in the spare bedroom closet either.  Or in the freezer.  Not in the dresser drawer or under the bathroom sink.  Nix on the bookshelves (although I emptied them twice just to be sure.)  Not in the boxes of Christmas ornaments.  Jerry helped me search for several hours the other night.  I figure I have about twenty-five man hours invested in this project all together.  Still no checkbook.

The last time I could remember seeing it we were in Charleston.  I began wondering, would we drive back to Charleston just to get our checkbook?  How far would you backtrack to pick up a lost item?

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When we were traveling back from Orlando a couple of weeks ago, we hit a storm system that was spawning tornadoes.  We'd planned to drive straight through, but considered the weather and stopped just at the edge of Savannah.  There was a cluster of chain motels there and we just picked one and slept there.  Nothing special, just an emergency place to stay.

In the morning we got up early and left.  We had breakfast in Savannah and it was during this meal that Jerry asked, "Did you grab the pillows?" I hadn't and so then we had a little dilemma.  Do we go back and get them or not? 

I really like my pillow.  It's goose down and broken in.  I feel about it like a four-year-old feels about her blankie.  I am attached to it, but I don't necessarily want people to know.  I hated to leave it behind, but Jerry's determination to get from "Point A" to "Point B" as rapidly as possible is legendary.  I harbored little hope that he would drive ten minutes in the wrong direction to retrieve it. 

Calling the motel was a good idea, but neither of us could remember what the name of it was and we hadn't gotten a receipt. I reasoned that it was still early and maybe the maids hadn't even cleaned our room yet but Jer didn't want to bother driving that far if they'd already thrown our pillows away. 

Jerry was calling random motel chains, asking them "Are you the motel by the Cracker Barrel?" when I realized I had stuffed my pillow into my suitcase.  The urgency of the trip back magically dissolved for me now that I knew my own pillow wasn't at risk.  Funny how that works, right?  I hadn't mentioned my news yet to Jer, but he sensed that something was different in my attitude. "Whatever you want to do, honey."  I said sweetly.

When I finally told him only his pillow was left in the room, he surprised me by deciding to go back anyway.  Apparently he likes his pillow as much as I like mine.  It was worth the extra twenty minutes' drive just to know that we would have our own pillows to sleep on when we got home.

A week or so later I was trying to make my friend who works at a B&B laugh by telling her the pillow story.  She did smile but then she told me an even funnier  one.  A snarky couple stayed with them for a couple of nights and when they left, the maid found a pair of men's underwear and a pair of socks in the bureau drawer.  "What should I do with these?" she asked.  It had been about forty-five minutes since these guests had departed so my friend said, "Throw them in the dumpster."

Wouldn't you know about fifteen minutes later the man called and said he was coming back for them?  The women were both flabbergasted!  How much can a pair of underwear and socks cost?  The gas they were going to spend to drive back to the inn probably would have covered the price tags of replacements and then some. 

The women quickly did a dumpster dive and recovered the articles, slightly worse for the wear.  Breakfast scraps had been thrown in on top of the underwear, so they now had Hollandaise sauce decorating the front panel.  The innkeeper scrubbed them the best she could, stuck them in a plastic bag and just handed the whole mess to the man when he arrived.  "Don't even ask," she told him.  

He'd added a hundred and twenty minutes to his drive in order to retrieve his pair socks and a wet pair of underpants.  It's a crazy world.

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Sam "driving" the van.

So, would we drive four hours one-way to retrieve our checkbook?   We won't need to find out this time because I found it outside in the recycling bin.  Like I said, it's a crazy world.

Sweet Savannah?

Savannah may be a city that oozes southern charm, but one thing in short supply is available bathrooms.  Hospitality doesn't seem so hospitable when you have to go and all you see in every direction are signs that say, "No Public Restrooms."

St. Paddy's Day in Savannah is legendary and the population swells to three times its normal size.  I arrived one week later and the city was clearly recovering from its collective hangover.  I have zero idea where the beer swilling Irishmen or their Irish-wanna-be friends relieved themselves during their big fun (want me to guess?) but I found myself walking square after square in search of the golden fleece -- in this case, a toilet. 

While I searched, I cursed that sneaky waiter at the outdoor cafe who kept surreptitiously filling my water glass until I had probably unwittingly consumed several gallons of liquid, far in excess of what my tiny bladder would normally accommodate.   Come to think of it, he had an Irish lilt to his voice.  My suspicion is that he had a personal St. Paddy's Day ax to grind. 

Soon I found myself standing in line inside a gourmet market/petrol station waiting for the opportunity to humiliate myself by asking the guy cashiering for the restroom key.  Just as my turn finally arrived --and not a moment too soon--a young girl breezed in and said, "Excuse me.  Could I please have your restroom key?"  And he gave it to her!

I peeled out of line and followed the girl with the restroom key into the store's underbelly.  This market was one of those snobbish, upscale places where they sell chocolate candy bars for six bucks a piece.  Even the help was able to size me up and with one arch of an eyebrow make me feel I didn't belong there.  Well, the joke's on them because their store isn't all that attractive back there in the loo line and the restroom, even though you had to use a key to access it, wasn't any cleaner than the average gas station's.

Beggars can't be choosers though and I was truly grateful that they allowed me to use their facilities, albeit grudgingly.  I bought a candy bar on the way out.  It was surprisingly tasty. 

Maybe you really do get what you pay for.