A few things happened

Hi, how are you? Yeah, I’ve been gone for a few weeks. Where was I? Doesn’t really matter. I’m back now.

I forgot that my brother had the address of my blog, so when he asked why I wasn’t writing on it any more, it jarred me. Oh yeah, I have a blog. So I went to the computer, opened up this page, and started reading a few of the posts. And you know what? I liked them. I thought they were funny and well-written. And I wanted to read more.

So, duh, I knew I’d have to write them.

This morning I couldn’t find my keys. I can’t say I lost them, because for all I knew they were sitting in the pocket of my other jeans on my dresser. It wasn’t like I dropped them down a crevasse on a glacier, or left them at work, or they slipped out of a hole in my pocket and dropped out of my cuff just when I was walking across the catwalk above a giant pail of molten steel during my tour of the Wells Steel Mill (how do those giant pails not melt? What the hell are they made of?). Anyway, it wasn’t like that. I just didn’t know where they were, and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had them.

Losing my keys sucked especially for the following reasons:

1. It was a workday. So I’m pissed that I can’t find my keys, checking the same places over and over, tearing up my bedding, cursing in my head – all the while knowing that my reward, the light at the end of the tunnel, is that when I finally find the stupid things, I get to go to work. At my job. Which blows.

2. Let me couch the second reason in broader terms: people try to help you look. This is a wonderful gesture, and truly generous. It really is. But you just know other people never know where to look, can’t retrace your steps, and honestly have an icicle’s chance in hell of actually helping. Meanwhile, they sacrifice their breakfast time to wander the house, exacerbating your pain with the following three rejoinders:

a. “When did you have them last?” I have no idea, sometime between four days and one hour ago when I realized they were missing. In which time I’ve been in and out of four vehicles and twelve buildings. Really narrows it down.

b. “Did you check [insert place here]?” There are two possible answers to this question: “yes, obviously, I checked there first and three times since then,” or “no, there is no way in hell they could possibly be there.”

c. And my favorite: “Any luck?” Yes, that’s why my face is scrunched and scarlet, my knuckles are white and you could hear my teeth grinding when I was in the basement while you were waiting for the shower to warm up with the doors closed, the stereo blasting an all-cymbal orchestra and a tiger on your bed killing a wild boar with a jackhammer.

That was the worst hyperbole ever. I know. Shut up.

After twenty minutes or so, I was really at my wits end. My room looks like an absolute war-zone at this point. I was trying to pull out my own hair, but was too exhausted, so instead I just stumbled around in a hopeless delirium, checking and re-checking all the places I had already checked and re-checked. Then, on my fifth time checking the pockets of the jeans on my dresser, I found them. I still have no explanation for this, so don’t ask. The point is that I got to work just in time to be late for filling out my “Notice of Days Absent” and “Time Worked Request for Payroll” forms, sure to garner extra attention from the bosses when they notice that under “hours worked in the last two weeks,” I have scrawled “45.” Whatever.

So how about Big Brown?

Let’s change the subject, shall we? Yes we shall. Did you watch the Preakness? The Derby? Have you seen Big Brown? Let’s itemize this:

1. I know the fields haven’t been the strongest, and I know the margins of victory haven’t been huge, but he has won both races easily. First of all, he came from the outside both times (and in at least one other race), which means he actually ran marginally farther than the horses on the rail. And even so, he’s never really been tested. His jockey said he completely eased up the last furlong or so because the race wasn’t close, and said he was returning him to the stables with “a half-tank of gas left.”

2. Big Brown is named after UPS, as in “what can Brown do for you?” Is this weird? Did they pay for that? Do they get a share of his winnings? Or after his retirement from competitive racing, is he bound by contract to ferry packages cross-country a la Pony Express?

3. Did I tell you that I bet on Big Brown in the Derby? And that I bet on Eight Belles to place? And made 434% on my money? And then bet on him again in the Preakness and won? Cause I did.

4. Do you find it weird that I’m talking about horseracing? Because I sort of do.

So that’s enough for today. I guess after that little break, this post is the equivalent of make-up sex, and I apologize for leaving you just shy of the brink of satisfaction. It was good for me, though, and hey, at least now there’s not a post about poop at the top of the page. And I didn’t even make a poop joke about Big Brown! That doesn’t count.