Losing It!

Few things make me more nuts than when I, or my children (or husband), misplace an important belonging. With so much stuff to keep track of, I find “the search” to be an almost daily undertaking. Yesterday it was my son’s missing right hockey glove (still in the “lost” column).Consider today’s surreal hunt for another lost item…

My daughter, Amanda, left her brand new jean jacket on the bus to religious school yesterday. Should I go looking? Well, it was a birthday present… Enough said. I called the bus depot and the office clerk said she thought she saw it on the top of the pile, so I headed over. When I go there I found out that the custodian had dumped all the lost and found items on a porch at a house-come-office next door. The clerk pointed me in the right direction and I found myself faced with five garbage bags filled with a shameless amount of kids’ clothes – most of them damp (or sweaty?). I hunted through a bit – with disgust and no success - and then went looking for the custodian to see if he could give me some clue as to where it might be. He was very lovely, but we didn’t find it.

I headed back to the depot and this time asked the office clerk if she knew which bus it might be on. She found the listing and said Amanda was on bus #369 and if I wanted to, I could go look through the bus myself. “It’s parked somewhere out there,” she dismissively waved her hand in a general direction.

A mom on a mission, I walked among a maze of about 30 school buses in search of #369 and finally found it parked way at the back. So, there I am, skulking down the aisle of a hot, smelly school bus in search of my daughter’s jean jacket. And yes, I was claustrophobic and irrational with thoughts of getting stuck inside forever and never being found.

My first trek down the aisle was unsuccessful…but I decided to look one more time and there it was, the blessed jacked was wedged into a seat that was partially raised up. Success! But at what cost?