The Case of the Missing Case

I’ve joined many who complain about the lack of resilience in the younger generation. Yet here I confess that in my eldership, I’m noticing my own issues of losing patience too quickly.

 

With the bigger issues, like the disappointment of human indecency, greed, ignorance and such, I’m actually a little more patient. But when something goes missing that I can’t find, watch out! There’s a storm a-brewin’!

 

This morning, I couldn’t find the case for my glasses. I looked in every logical nook and cranny of this summer cottage, under the bed, under piles on tables and it simply had mysteriously disappeared. I calmly asked for some compassionate family member to help me, which they did for two minutes, to no avail. I stuck to the best search policy of remembering when I last had them and where they would logically be. (There’s a Mullah Nasruddin story of someone looking for his keys out in his front yard. When someone asked him when he last had them, he said, “I dropped them somewhere around the front door.” “Then why are you looking over here?” “Because the light is better!”)

 

And speaking of light, I turned on my phone flashlight and looked down into the corner springs of the fold-up bed and sure enough, there it was! But by then I had worked myself into such a tizzy and made myself so miserable that there was still work to do to regain equilibrium. I also felt that after swimming yesterday, in spite of wearing earplugs, my head felt plugged up and it was even harder than usual to hear what anyone was saying, even with my hearing aids. So the frustrations were multiplying and in that state, as we do, I kept piling more on. “How to deal with my typically-phone-addicted 15-year-old granddaughter so that five minutes of conversation doesn’t feel like a gift from the heavens, but just the norm it should be?” “Why is my wife asking me to clean the stove after someone else’s cooking five minutes after I woke up?” “Why isn’t the orange-man dead yet?” You get the idea. 

 

Today was the day to do the annual ritual hike to the Baldy Dune and I actual considered not going, not wanting to bring the others down with my grouchiness. But they encouraged me to come and I wisely conceded.

 

On the walk up to the dune, my youngest daughter confided to me struggles she and fellow staff members were having with the admin at school and on the beach walk back, my oldest daughter shared similar struggles with a couple of fellow staff members in her work. Both brought up systemic issues with the way we now avoid real conversation and out-source conflict to committees in disturbingly ineffective and inefficient ways. Issues worthy of some reflection in this Blog, but not now. More importantly, I loved that they both trusted me to listen and empathize and I was happy to do both. It also, along with the 4-mile walk, was a good way to walk out of my Pity Party and feel a little bit more restored to self. 

 

So now the afternoon awaits with a bike ride or back-lake swim, Miniature Golf with the grandkids, sushi dinner back home, the Cool Spot Ice Cream in town and a trip to the Cherry Bowl Drive In to see Spiderman. With only 3 ½ days with my daughters and grandkids before they have to go back, all our annual rituals feel condensed. But still fun and now that I’ve solved The Case of the Missing Case, I hope to thoroughly enjoy them. 

 

PS Skipped the bike ride and swim, but took the grandkids to Mini-Golf. Before getting in the car, looked for my sunglasses which I had on the Baldy Hike and they were nowhere to be seen. Still missing. Then a great game of golf— we all have improved a lot and Zadie got a hole-in-one, shopping, home to ger ready for the evening—and then my phone was missing. Zadie had it in the store to look at the photo of the wine I was supposed to buy, but swore that she gave it back to me. I looked in the car. Nothing. Had Kerala call it and when I went to the car again, heard the ring. Again, nothing in sight in front or back seats but when I opened the trunk, there it was! It had fallen out of my front pocket while reaching far into the trunk for the Spindrift water. 

 

Some gods of lost items are having a super-fun day watching my suffer. Good for them! But can we stop now please?