I’m a pretty neat person. I don’t mean “neat” as in “cool,” but “neat” as in organized and preferring to have stuff in its place.
But apparently a couple of spots in my life have been overlooked lately. I’ll just blame it on COVID, which gets blamed for a lot since we came through it.
“It ... it was during COVID, you know,” people say.
The people hearing it shake their heads in understanding what a tough time it was and how many things changed. And whatever you caused to happen or not happen during COVID gets forgiven, even if it really didn’t have much at all to do with COVID.
But it’s OK. Whether it was COVID or not, I recently did a deep dive into a couple of spots under my jurisdiction and found some surprises.
I was quietly crocheting in my recliner when I dropped my crochet hook. I didn’t quickly find it, so I stuck my hand down into the side of the chair as far as it would go.
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There was the crochet hook, and another one, and another one. No wonder I’ve been having to buy new crochet hooks. Maybe my brand-new Kindle I recently lost might be down there, so I went farther.
Susan Elzey
I didn’t find my Kindle, but how long had my sister’s checkbook been down in my recliner?
“Wow,” she said upon being told. “I had given up finding that.”
There were also five pens, several ponytail holders, a pair of scissors and a few errant peas from dinner in front of the news.
I felt better that my chair was cleaned out. I’ll attack the others later.
Then a few days later I got a letter from the DMV that I needed to return my mother’s disabled parking tag immediately since she had passed away a few months ago. I went out to the van, which I used to drive her around in, and looked in the glove compartment.
I haven’t driven it much since, yes, COVID.
This is what I found in that glove compartment: Store receipts from 2016 and coupons that expired in 2020. A year’s supply of hand sanitizer. Broken earplugs. A shopping list with “room deodorizer” and “Zodiac necklace” written on it. A Weight Watchers calculator. Princess sunglasses. A motion sickness bag. A mask. Band-aids.
One plastic knife. One packet of artificial sweetener. A CyberPower charger. A Walmart bag, both in the compartment and on the floor, somewhat proving my hypothesis that no one is ever more than 6 feet from a Walmart bag. Finally, 12 pens, seven of which worked.
But no parking tag.
I threw most of the items away in a Walmart bag.
Consequently, I wrote a nice note on the DMV letter that I had already thrown my mother’s tag away and even if I hadn’t, I would never be tempted to park illegally with it. Well, I might be tempted, but I wouldn’t do it.
I then got in my little car to mail the letter and immediately saw the parking tag in the side compartment of the drivers seat. Apparently I had seen it at least five times a day for a year or so.
What to do? I couldn’t mail a lie to the DMV. I got out of the car, opened the letter, crossed out my original note and wrote a cheery “Whoops! I found the parking tag after all. Please find it enclosed. Thank you so much.”
To my credit, I believe, I did not blame it on COVID.
In conclusion, I have plenty of working pens now, still no Kindle and more crochet hooks than I will ever need.
Definitely a deep dive to remember.
