To say my memory is slipping is like observing the clutch on Pickle’s snowmachine is slipping a tad…you can tell by the smell of burning rubber or gray matter. I miss the odd item so on an impending trip across the great white north to visit the gene pool in southern Ontario, I planned ahead. I packed everything, checked it twice, and loaded the car for an early morning departure. At 6 a.m. I hustled everything down to the lobby, hit the remote start for the car and hurried out to the parking lot.
No sign of any exhaust fumes rising from my parking spot and I had just changed the batteries in my key fobs last week. gingerly entering the lot afraid there might be the odd icy spot I became quickly aware my parking space was empty.
What the h@#$%! Pickle! That @#@#$ has moved my car. SOB! Been trying to pull one on me since I nearly ran him down on the sidewalk during that last little snow squall.
But no! Wait! I have both FOBs. @#% those car thieves from Trawna have hit Rainy River. What to do? Call 911? No! Wait! Think! Retrace my steps! Since I packed the car yesterday, I was at the Bakery for afternoon coffee and walked back home.
I looked up the main drag and sure enough sitting across from the Bakery in a cloud of exhaust, lights blazing, sat the beast. At least those new batteries in the key fob paid off. I threw in my case, clamored in, and only a half hour late roared off.
A day and a half later having only lost my medicine dispenser at some McDs, I arrived at the toll gate at the Ambassador Bridge in Detroit nerves pretty well scrambled from negotiating impending traffic crashes. I whip out my wallet for a credit card. One more toll and I’m home free.
Damn! No wallet! No cards! No cash! No exit! I must have left my wallet at the last gas station a hundred odd miles back. A one hour search of my car was fruitless. What to do?
Beg!
Ok. See those trucks over there, said the toll gate guard. Get in line with them and once you get onto the bridge get in the car lane and whatever you do don’t stop! Have a nice day! Don’t ever come back!
I made it. My licence plate was so covered with salt the Michigan Highway patrol is still trying to identify by vehicle.
I fretted and stewed the rest of the way to my destination. Where was my wallet?
Who was now using my credit cards? Had my debit card emptied my bank account?
Where was the gas receipt from the last service station? How was I going to get all my I.D. replaced?
All questions I was afraid to even attempt to answer. Death seemed like an easier solution.
Arriving at my destination I tried one more sure – to- be- fruitless – search for my wallet. That last bump of a Detroit pot-hole must have shaken in loose. There it lay under the driver’s seat.
One of life’s great mysteries is answered for me. There is a God!
