Out-Of-Pocket

   car keys
   apartment fob
   tickets
   map
   It has been an interesting summer. On a variety of occasions, I have had to deal with a host of at least temporary emotional traumas related to the insecurity around having thought that valuable items were safely ensconced in one of my pockets, only to discover that, indeed, they were not.
   Pockets seem so safe. They never leave you, they are not detachable, they don't slowly come loose over time and then drop off when you least expect it. When I want something to be both safe and accessible, I stick it in my pocket. I am now starting to re-think this....
   It all started a little earlier on in the summer when my oldest son, Bryant, left me the key fob to his building, so that I could get in there to feed his cats while he was off on one of his many European vacays. I was out and about carrying the fob in my pocket one day when a semi-homeless person asked me if I had any loose change, for coffee. Generally I say "no" to such requests but as I've mellowed (muddled) with age, I occasionally acquiesce. In the process of digging out some loose change, I remember feeling the fob and attempting to switch pockets with it. After this transaction I headed home where I discovered that I no longer had the fob! I went back and re-traced my steps but no fob to be found. I eventually was able to borrow a fob from one of Bry's friends and, at that point, guarded it with my life. Stupid pockets!
 

These things had wings this summer!!

 A few weeks ago I was in the middle of a forest, hiking a section  of the Avon Trail. I was carrying a map of the trail, in a plastic ziplock bag, in my front pocket. and had been periodically checking it. At one point, though, when I reached down to check it, it was gone! Fortunately, I had just recently looked at it so I knew it likely wasn't too far away and, in short order, about half a kilometer away, I found it, nestled by the trail. Whew!
   On that same hiking trip, I randomly decided to check my pockets for my car keys, the ones with my son's now-borrowed apartment fob attached. Not there. Extreme panic. I was about ten kilometers away from a car I was going to have to walk to and then not be able to drive when I got there. On top of all this, I was about sixty kilometers away from home. Throwing up seemed like an option. When I forced my panic to subside just a  little, I did find the keys in a totally different pocket than the one I thought I'd left them in. Another huge whew!
   A couple of months ago, Doralyn and I went downtown to see a comedy show at the Grand Theater. I stuck the tickets for this in my back pocket and covered them with my shirt. We walked about six blocks to get to the theater and as we entered I went to my back pocket, only to find them gone! Some cursing went on in the theater lobby and the two of us immediately started retracing our steps. Right away we came across a street person who was meandering our way with our tickets in his hand! I immediately started digging through my wallet to reward this man and handed him a twenty. We turned and started to walk away at which point he requested an extra $10 ("for the bus"). Doralyn handed him a fiver and we were on our way.
   There we have it---way too many sad tales to do with pockets and the things that magically fly out of them!