Aug. 01, 2005 - 18:55 M DT

OF OLD AGE ?

As I have seniority on Heather, my boo-boos seem to happen oftener. But today it was her turn.

I'll try to tell it like it happened.

Heather is flying to Eugene, Oregon on the third of this month, so she has been ironing (in the day of permanent press all her clothes seem to need ironing), packing, repacking and generally rearranging her stuff. She is making a great effort to make sure that she has all the right stuff in the right place to make her journey as little trouble to her as possible.

Today we were out doing our first of the month errands, one of which was a stop at Kohl's where she wanted to return a dress. Along about noon we pulled into the parking area and I went nose down in my crossword puzzles and she went into the store. She returned shortly, remarking on how courteous the store personnel is. Annnnnd off we went.

We got almost halfway between Kohl's and the Lone Star where we planned to eat a bite when she went into a sort of panic attack, started rifling through her purse and groaned, "I must have left my billfold on the counter at Kohl's." A fairly quick turnaround and back to Kohl's we went, this time I went in with her as she was a minor basket case by then. We went to the counter where she had returned the goods and saw the clerk who had waited on her. No billfold had been found. We straggled out of the store our tails dragging, got in the car and hearselike we went north again.

We were more than halfway to the turn-off to our house when Heather said, "Let's stop at home and I want to look in the purse I am getting ready to take to Oregon." (purse large enough to house a small Volkswagen)

Up to that time it was weighing on our minds about the necessity to cancel her cards and worrying about getting her a duplicate driver's license so she could get through the airport. The grim thought that perhaps someone had snatched her billfold off the counter and walked off with it and perhaps buying the world before she could get things put out of action.

I drove up in the driveway, and she went in the house. I, all the time, praying that her billfold would be in our house and trying to figure out how to take care of a lady driven to the extreme mental fugue by the loss of her cards and license.

Peak of the event, shortly after going inside, she reappeared all smiles and said some inane thing like, "The lost is found." Once again my heart started beating in a normal rhythm and my spirits lifted. By then it was too late to lunch at Lone Star (where the price is right)so we wound up our shopping and stopped at Wendy's for a stick in the mud burger & fries.

Heather gently reminded me of my last lost item panic - - - - we were headed out somewhere and knowing that I would have to stop for gas, reached back to make sure my billfold was in my back pocket -- and it wasn't there.

What a comedy of errors that was. We must have gone to half dozen places we had been the last time we were out and nobody had seen hide nor hair of my billfold.

I searched, and researched and fine-combed my room. It of course wasn't in the spot I ALWAYS put it, nor could I find it in the room no matter where or how I gave the place the look-about.

Sitting dejectedly in a chair my beloved said, "You know that I have helped you in the past find something you have misplaced, let me take a look around." Overtaken by a surge of rage, quietly quelled before expressed I said something to the effect, "Might as well, I can't dance anyway." I followed her in the room, right away she said, "There it is," and sure enough there it was. I have a fan, a sort of tower thingy and sitting in plain sight right on top was my billfold. To this day I have no memory of putting it there, but obviously I did.

The main function of a mate of a person who is in a state like that is to be as supportive as possible, soothing, calming and not going on and on about it. Doing all things possible to solve the problem. Milady has done so for me many times in the past, I owed the double debt to her.

At least in the last few years I have not called and cancelled my check card when I thought it was lost. A ten business day wait 'til the new card came, a new pin number to learn and all that jazz.

We had planned to do a bit of work around home when we got back, but we looked at each other, grinned and exchanged the idea that we were each too damn tired to do much of anything more tonight. Heather is in watching her news on TV and I am at the keyboard. Strung out but releived the both of us.

Dear Abby, could this be a function OF OLD AGE ? . . . . . . . . . .