Missing Things

It's the time of year for missing gloves and mittens. Walk nearly any roadside, parking lot, or sidewalk and you'll find them, squashed and soggy, naturally dirty, but clearly still mittens and gloves. I don't understand this. How could you not know that a mitten had fallen off? Didn't that hand feel cold? And if you knew it was gone, why wouldn't you go back to get it? I can understand children's wear, but I'm seeing a great number of adult items this year. Soon it will be the time for glasses. Three pair(s) I found last summer. This too is a mystery: do you not realize that you can no longer see? And wouldn't you go back to that line in your mind where all of a sudden the world got fuzzy? In all honesty, I have lost some glasses in my lifetime, but each involved special circumstances: my first two pair(s) were intentionally ditched over the side of the Patroon Island bridge some years back coming home from a Pentecostal healing service. Listening to the evengelist I became convinced that glasses were like a sharp stick in God's eye. Good lord, if we had faith the size of a mustard seed we could not only move mountains but alter the shape of our eyeballs, yes? Of course faith demands a sacrifice, a sign that you truly believe, so mine flew out the window at fifty miles per hour, followed almost immediately by the spare pair(s) in the glove compartment. Had I clung to those as a fallback position God most surely would not have honored my faith and I would remain half-blind. It was a long summer of squinting and bad driving. I did, in fact, lose the third pair but that was during near-hurricane conditions while running the Point Pleasant marathon, and I was in so much pain that I finished the race not knowing I no longer had them. So that doesn't count, not like all these other idiots that have no excuses. Fall seems to bring out stray nuts and bolts. Everywhere I look there they are. I actually found three pair(s) of them while raking leaves last year! Are you kidding me? NO! Something is completely falling apart on my lawn. Must be late at night when everyone's asleep, so I am always very careful now when operating any of my own machinery. You can't be too careful.