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?
* * *
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.
Usually I refuse to turn the heat on until November 1st, half as a matter of pride and half because I'm cheap and don't like to pay money to utilities. This year though I broke down and cranked up the thermostat last night after we got in from passing out Halloween candies.
The number of little kids in costume was depressingly low and we had bought three bags of candy, two of chocolate candy bars and one of Nerds which all kids like but I don't. The first bag of mini-Snickers didn't even make it to last weekend - willpower not being my strong suit. The second and third bags, candy choices I would never pick for myself, made it into the pumpkin and up the hill. The lack of munchkins created an excess of candy though so I ended up visiting my neighbors and trading my candy for good (chocolate) stuff, which I felt compelled to eat before Jerry found out. He's the candy consumption police at our house.
After the end of official trick-or-treat, I pretty-well collapsed on my bed in a sugar coma. When I woke up, I was chilly so I flipped on the heat. One night more or less is no big deal, is it? And I did turn the heat down to 60 this morning.
I also don't normally wear my shoes inside but since the floor was still a little chilly, I slipped on my trusty crocs. As I sat down to type this story, I smelled the telltale whiff of doggie dew. Nice. I've been walking all over the house in these things the entire morning.
Funny how the memory gets triggered -- as I sat thinking about what to do, I remembered my little dog Betsey which my parents got us when we were kids. Truth be told, Mom didn't like animals all that much and to add to her joy, she starting sneezing about a second after the dog came into the house. Betsey became an outdoor dog, which in our world meant she was chained to a doghouse in the back yard. She grew to be somewhat snippy (who could blame her?) and ultimately bit a kid who was cutting through our yard on the way home from school so the parents shipped my dog off to my grandparents' farm.
This was okay by me because I spent a lot of my weekends at that farm. My grands had a huge garden which contained unlimited strawberries, tomatoes and corn on the cob in season. Good eating! My grandma made not only world's best molasses cookies but also the best sugar cookies on earth, both without the benefit of recipes. My grandpa hid pink candies in his night stand and every night before bed we'd both have a big bowl of vanilla ice cream with Vernor's ginger ale poured all over it. Who wouldn't want to stay at a place like that? Sugar heaven plus my own little dog! I'm there.
My grandpa was a true jack-of-all-trades and as well as being a carpenter and a farmer, kept a chicken coop. My grandma made soft, soft pillows and mile-high feather mattresses that you'd sink into forever. It was dreamy to sleep there! (I didn't connect the dots with the Sunday fried chicken dinners until I was older.) I got to help collect the eggs too. This sounds more fun than it was because sometimes you had to slide your hand under a very irate hen to steal her egg. I understand the phrase "madder than a wet hen" from personal experience.
Grandma, too, had a rule about no shoes in the house which I generally observed. This day though I went out by the chicken coop to play with the dog, rushed right inside, went upstairs and dived into the bed, coat, shoes and all. I heaved a sigh of pure pleasure. A few minutes later though my grandma was looming above me and to say she was unhappy was a dramatic understatement.
Normally I could do no wrong in her eyes - which is a trait to be admired in a grandparent - but even she had her limits. Tracking dog poop into her house, up the stairs and into her feather bed was too much for even her to bear.
She didn't even have to yell at me though because as soon as I saw her I burst into tears. I'm sensitive like that. Today, having just tracked poop through my own house, I am able to understand a bit better how my grandma must have felt that day so many years ago.
Crocs are washable though and my house has hardwood floors. I think I got off easy.
Sorry Gran!
