Lost and Found

I'm a backpack guy. I haul things in backpacks. Since elementary school I've hauled things in a backpack.

In kindergarten it was square and looked like a Hershey Bar, and the straps could be reconfigured to work as a backpack, or messenger bag, or satchel.

In Jr. High and High School I avoided my lockers almost religiously. They were in far too inconvenient locations, so I carried everything. Except Senior Year, that was a good locker year. For a brief stint in high school I tried a satchel, but the canvas material just didn't hold up that great.

On my mission I started with a back pack, but there was a bombing at the Olympics—and the bomb was in a backpack, so our mission president bought leather man-bags for all of us.

Home from a mission and off to college, I bought the biggest day bag that Jansport made, and lugged that bad boy all over campus. That bag has been retired to Hobby Game transporter status. I keep Carcassonne, Battle Cattle, The Settlers of Catan Card Game & Expansions, Guillotine, Zombie Fluxx, Fluxx, Family Fluxx, Lupus in Tabula, Are you a Werewolf, Ticket to Ride USA 1910 expansion, Cranium Zigity, and Lord of the Fries in it. (Funny Fact—I still haven't taken all the art supplies out of it, probably because games won't fit in that particular compartment)

Even now I have a backpack that I take most places. Good places to buy backpacks are Ross and TJMaxx. You can generally find a nice $80 Laptop Backpack in the neighborhood of $25-30. I bought one for a laptop, then I bought another one for toting around the Wii. The one that I bought for the Wii had a secret compartment in the bottom that held a Rain-jacket for the backpack.

I swiped that rain-jacket from the Wii pack (which resides behind the couch most of the time) and gave it a more permanent home in the pack that I use all the time; and it has been very useful as of late.

I got drenched last week, but my bag and its contents were bone dry.

Yesterday when I left the house it wasn't raining, but it looked like it might be when I got downtown. I was going to put the rain-coat on my pack, but it was missing. I searched the places I keep the pack but it was gone, and it was time to go. I guessed that it had fallen out of the pocket I keep it in, or that Moira had been playing with it. I didn't have time investigate further, it was time to walk to the bus stop. In walking to the Bus Stop I found it. It was sitting on the lawn of the High School. Good thing too, because it was raining when I was walking to the bus stop after work.

Monday, when it was time to leave work I checked my pockets and found that my cell phone was missing. I called it to see if it was nearby; it wasn't. So I was trying to think of all the places I could have dropped it. On the walk from home to the bus stop, on the bus to downtown, on the walk from the bus stop to work, in the company car that I took to a remote office, at the cubicle in the remote office... or maybe I didn't pick it up when I left home and it was still sitting on my desk.

It was still on my desk when I got home.

Yesterday I forgot to grab my keys when I left the house. I didn't notice until Emily informed me during a phone call a little before I left to go home. I'm glad she told me—If I had noticed on the way home, it would have been another panic session all the way home.

I found a Lighter on the ground at the bus stop yesterday. One of the nice Zippo ones. I picked it up—then I felt guilty about it after I got on the bus, since I had just that morning benefited from someone not picking up something I had lost. It's broken, the lid doesn't close all the way, and it's scuffed up a bit—perhaps it was tossed out the window of a moving vehicle. It sparks, but doesn't light, so it's most likely out of fuel. Maybe I'll put it back where I found it. Could I get fined for littering?

I pick up any and all change I find on the ground. Including pennies. I found a Euro Cent a few weeks ago.