Lost and found

To some extent this is about getting older. A time when you can start to forget if you took your pills or not. You can’t for the life of you find where you stored the hand blender. You can’t remember to whom you lent the paint mixer. A time when the mind starts to go and you have to adapt. I started writing notes in my little black book. A nice gift I received for Christmas. Mostly to-do notes. An occasional drawing. Lots of math from the market where I sell many varieties of fresh cut flowers. And a new bad habit. All my passwords. And phone numbers. My client list and recent orders. Email addresses. It makes this little black book important and I take it everywhere. It’s not a diary but I can kind of read between the lines of my to-do lists and extract a journal of sorts. Sometimes I leave myself little notes in the tiniest of script. They are mostly self improvement notes. You know the kind. I will be less controlling. That sort of thing. Or I copy inspirational quotes. It’s quiet now so I’m going through the pages at a slower rate. It’s winter and it’s Covid lockdown. And I am bored.

Yesterday our cat chewed down the entire length of a page of my little black book. She shredded it. This cat has an annoying habit of chewing on any papers left around. Phone bills. Receipts. I feel like the kid at school who always says the dog ate his homework but in my case it might be a bill to be paid at the bank. A bill that looks ragged and torn. And me apologizing for the work of my cat.

I had to go shopping at the grocery store where the unthinkable happened. I couldn’t find my little black book. At least I was sure I had remembered to bring it. I always took it with me. I had placed the grocery list in it, right? My husband liked to use post-it notes for our grocery lists. Tiny little yellow sticky notes filled with my husband’s crammed and hardly legible writing. We were getting a bit eccentric. Both of us would shift through the cutlery drawer looking for the particular forks that had handles we liked. I would use only one of the mugs out of our vast array. The one that happened to say “World’s Best Dad”.

I was sure I’d brought my little black book. I thought it was crammed into my smallish green purse and someone might have snagged it. It might have been sticking out. That’s what I thought. But why? I kept looking around. No one had my little black book that I could see. I had foolishly left my cart unattended for only a couple of minutes while I grabbed some celery and carrots. The little black book. Gone. Maybe someone had mistaken it for a large wallet. It was an attractive notebook complete with a snap closure. I checked my cart in case it had fallen out. Nothing. I started to panic a bit thinking of all those passwords, lists and phone numbers. My husband always bugged me into using software on my computer to keep track of passwords. He also bugged me to use my iPad for keeping notes on a calendar. There are all sorts of programs he would remind me. But I liked my little black book. The feel of it. I liked leafing through the pages just like all those people who don’t want to give up the smell and feel of a book instead of going digital.

I was suddenly sure I’d left the book at home. Then I remembered another problem. A big one. Only a few days ago my father had given me a large cheque. A cheque out of the blue. He had decided he wanted to sell the land he owned in the States and the proceeds would be split between my sisters and I. It was a gift and a sizeable one. I gasped at the time. It was a cheque for $20,000. It was a beautiful thing to behold and perversely I was looking forward to seeing whether the teller at my bank would have a poker face or not. The bank was my next stop. Would the teller play it cool? I myself was deliriously happy. The money came at such a good time. We had renos I really wanted to get done on the house.

But where was my little black book? Not trusting my memory I imagined it must still be in the car. Maybe I hadn’t brought it at all. I rushed to get back to my car. Nothing. Again no little black book. Now I was thinking I didn’t bring it at all and it was still at home. With age my memory was definitely starting to play tricks on me. Sometimes I couldn’t keep a thought in my head for long without losing it. I was getting forgetful. I couldn’t remember where I had put things. The kettle had been left on. Just once. I put things in strange places. I was young to start worrying about Dementia or Alzheimer’s but it could start early I worried.

I drove home having shopped without the grocery list but I remembered most of it and when I got home I immediately checked the counter and my nightstand. The two most likely places where I kept the little black book. Nothing. I was really sorry about the passwords and everything but it was the cheque that was starting to make me queasy. I would have to tell my Dad. The thought made me uncomfortable. He was a real gruff real old guy and he would be visibly annoyed. Or irritated which was one of his favourite words. Irritated. I had to find that book.

After my husband assured me he hadn’t seen it I started to systematically search the house. I looked everywhere convinced I’d had one of those moments where I absentmindedly put the book somewhere out of place. I incidentally found the snowshoes I’d lost last winter in amongst all our junk. I found the Phillips screwdriver my husband was looking for. I found my hand knitted hat that I had misplaced somehow in the linen closet but no little black book.

I then did what I always do when I lose something important. After the initial panic. Like when losing a favourite piece of jewelry. Or my wallet. I decided I would stay calm. I would just relax and make a cup of tea and just try to remember when I’d last seen the little black book. Calmly. I knew I’d find it. It just didn’t appear to be in the house.

We made dinner and then I decided to check the car again and more thoroughly. It wouldn’t be the first time that something slipped under the seats. It was possible. I grabbed my flashlight and checked everywhere. Nothing. Well except a full prescription bottle that I had lost months ago. I started to really want that little black book. It really bothered me to have that cheque floating around. I worried after supper and then I decided to have a drink. Vodka and cranberry. I felt like a drink. Like quick stages of grief now I was really angry and full of blame at myself for being so careless with my belongings. Maybe someone had taken the book at the grocery store. A little black book thief who got some thrill from reading through someone else’s to-do lists. The cheque was safe. It was made out to me. But I’d have to tell my Dad very soon so he could cancel it and make another.

I got a glass out of the cupboard and placed it on the counter. I got the cranberry juice out of the fridge. We like to keep our vodka in the freezer, and I reached right in and low and behold... the little black book nestled right in beside the vodka bottle. The Little Black Book! In the freezer. I just stared dumbfounded realizing it was indeed what I was looking for and I had absolutely no recollection of putting it there. Or why?

Now when we can’t find something we always yell. “Check the freezer”.