Saturday, October 23, 2010

Panic Attack


In a lifetime we all have times when an event will be so overwhelming that we panic..a panic attack. Yesterday was one of those days. Theresa and Doris were going shopping for a while and I thought it would be a good time to run several errants. I had to get supplies for the pool, a new outside tap for the hose, yellow beans for the garden and a gadget for the computer. Everything started off well until I went to the pool warehouse and realized I left my wallet at home.

I apologized to the lady who analyzed the water and told her I would be right back.I drove home quickly and returned to the store with wallet in hand. With a cart full of salt, chlorine, tabs and a hand full of recipes and advice I left the store and began to load the stuff. My keys were in a bad location so I put everything down and opened the van rear door. Since I have hid away seats I had to make some more changes to load my stuff but finally sat behind the wheel with all those papers and my wallet and tossed them on the empty seat.

I next drove to Lowe's for the tap and bean seeds an found a place right next to the store door. Luck was back with me. I got out and through force of habit I reached for my wallet. Not there !!!!. No problem I must have tossed it on the seat so I returned to the van and it was nowhere to be seen. I panicked and searched the compartment where I placed my supplies, the front seat, under the front seat and turned out my pockets. Now I was scared. In my wallet was everything I need to exist in a foreign country besides some cash.

With my panic escalating I reached back to a night some 14 years earlier when I was called to the hospital and had to remove my suit coat to put on a gown. After my visit I went to pick up my jacket and I knew my wallet was missing. At the time I had $2200 there to pay for carpeting the next day. It was gone along with numerous cards etc. At the time I felt empty and violated. This feeling was returned to my older and less capable brain and I was in a panic mode. I raced back to the store and hoped that my wallet was there but it was not. I searched the area and again no wallet.

I drove the 3 miles home and stored away the chlorine and supplies. I racked my brains to go over every step. I sat down and decided to start calling the bank and so on when I thought of Theresa returning home to news like this. I had a ice water and returned to the van to exactly replicate my actions. As I opened the rear door of the van I saw the place where I put the chlorine and remembered I had to flip it open to have a place for the supplies. I also had a hand full of papers and maybe my wallet.

I closed the space and with a hand full of papers I re-opened the space flipping the recipes on the empty seat. There through the corner of my eye was a corner of the lost wallet stuck in under the front seat. Just as I panicked when I lost the wallet I burst with joy on seeing that little black wallet with my life's history packed on to half a dozen plastic cards. This time I went into the house and instead of ice water I had a large rum and Pepsi. It tasted so good that I closed my eyes and when I opened them again the world looked beautiful, wonderful and a safe place for an old fellow who panicked over a little black wallet which was misplaced for fifteen minutes.

1 comment:

  1. I can sense your panic in this post. Good thing you were able to find it .... reminds me of a certain wedding ring incident. But it all ended well!

    ReplyDelete

Ï'm interested in what you think ...