Missing: One Pair of Sneakers

Just the way I wanted to start a rainy and cold Friday morning.

I lost my sneakers.

How do things like this happen to me?

The last ten minutes of my morning routine is always a little crazy. If I could get my act together, I'd start packing up all the things I need to schlep to work the night before. But getting my act has slowly dropped further and further down my list of things to do.

So after a crazy rush of packing pump stuff, my lunch, figuring out where the hell I left the umbrella last time I used it (my husband was nice enough to put it away which totally drives me crazy; away is always the last place I look), I moved on to finding my sneakers.

They were not in the front hallway where I usually leave them. They were not under the bed, in the closet or in the corner by the dining room. After a three minute hunt of my own, it was time to call in reinforcement and get my husband involved.

We tore the house apart. Where the hell could they have gone? The last time I remember having them was at the front door, where I took them off. How could I lose a pair of sneakers in the house??

After another ten minutes of searching, I was convinced that this was my husband's idea of a not so subtle hint that I should start putting my stuff away where it belongs. He swore it was not and promised he would never do that to me on a work day (note to self: apparently weekends are fair game for teaching lessons).

At some point in this fiasco, any reasonable person would just go into their closet and get another pair of sneakers, right? Right. Except this very reasonable person made a genius move back when she was on maternity leave to purge her closet. I thought I would replenish my closet quickly and was very proud of myself for packing up quite a few bags of sneakers, shoes and clothing to be donated. I dropped them off in one of those big dumpster things in the parking lot of our local supermarket and was happy to help someone and relieved to have more room in my closet.

Little did I know that filling the closet back up would actually be harder than I imagined. And since I only wear sneakers two or three times a week, buying another pair was never top priority.

Anyway, eventually I gave up looking and now had to decide what shoes would match my outfit instead. Since my office allows casual Friday attire, I loathed the idea of changing into dress clothes but at the very last second, I remembered a pair of boots stashed under the bed that would match my jeans. At least I wouldn't be the only idiot wearing slacks in the office today.

I agonized where my sneakers could possibly be for nearly half my ride to work. I tried retracing my steps, thought about the last outfit I had on when I wore them, counted back the days since I've seen them. All I did was end up making myself crazy. I decided to put it out of my mind.

Like a slap in the face, I'm turning into the parking lot, thinking only about what we are going to have for dinner tonight, and it hits me.

The sneakers are in the back of my parents van in a bag that I packed to go down to the boat marina with them. I did not lose them in the house and my husband wasn't trying to torture me. I wore flip flops down there but packed sneakers in case it got cold.

Now... why couldn't my brain come up with that this morning so I didn't have to run around like a banshee??