I lose things. I admit it. I lose things but not because of any sort of absent mindedness. I believe I lose things because I’m charged with holding onto more things than the average person. And it’s not coincidence that I lose less in the summer time when I’m able to wear cargo shorts with a plethora of pockets built for carrying my eyeglasses, sunglasses, my keys, my glucose meter, my insulin, my Starburst candy’s, or even my camera. Granted it’s not every day that I’m carrying all of those items, but short of a man purse the size of a Toyota Tacoma, I’m prone to losing things more often than I would like.
But I find things too. I’m not suggesting I find treasures – I find things I lose. It’s seldom I lose things for good. I’ve found my glasses nearly as many times as I’ve lost them, for example. I’ve left the glasses on a train and stopped the moving train in order to retrieve them. They’ve dropped out of my jacket pocket in a movie theatre and I’ve returned to that theatre two showings later only to find them in the very place I believed I’d lost them. And the other day, I was able to reclaim my glasses which I’d left at the checkout counter at Home Depot.
Since my glasses are the item I’m most losing, I thought it wise to write my name and phone number inside the case so that were someone to encounter the glasses before I, they might be inclined to let me know they had them for me. My Home Depot experience was something different however. When I called to see if they’d located them, they said that they had in fact located some eyeglasses. In order to confirm these were mine they asked my name and my phone number. When I provided them and they matched, they were able to provide me the great news – they’d been found. However, I must point out, my name and my phone number are not code words I use to in order to positively identify my lost items – they are my name and phone number which can actually be used to let me know they’d been found! Do I need to come up with something more clever?
Probably not. I just need a man bag, that’s all.