Found My Crowbar

This might not seem important to you now, but it will. You youngsters spend enormous hours scurrying about trying to find the stuff you misplaced and now are wasting your time looking for things.

This process becomes excruciating when you get older. Trust me, I know.

The toothbrush needs to be in the same cup on the right. The socks are all lined up in the first drawer to the left with the underwear on the right. The coffee cup is ready in the same spot every morning.

It is a routine. It is memory placement. It becomes an obsession when things are out-of-place.

I don’t know why I was looking for my crowbar, but it wasn’t in the bottom drawer of my tool cabinet. Maybe after I used the shredder to recycle last years bills and conversations I noticed the big iron rod was not in the place that I expect it to be.

Where could it be?

It wasn’t in any of the other drawers. It wasn’t hanging on the wall? It wasn’t inside on the construction supply table? It wasn’t upstairs? It wasn’t in the supply shack out back?

Where could it be?

A crowbar is a simple tool but essential when you need a crowbar. When was the last time it was used? Could it been thrown away? It certainly wasn’t broken because you just can’t break it. Did I loan it out? No, I never loan tools to neighbors. Could it be outside rusting under a pile of leaves?

Where could it be?

And ‘yes’ I spend several hours scouring the countryside for a black tool that pry heavy things apart.

And then….

Way back in a drawer I wouldn’t have expected it to be, there it was.

The relief was overwhelming. “There you are!”

Picking it up and putting it back where I expected to find it earlier was a simple motion but for an old person an accomplishment.

The next time you can’t find your glasses sitting on your head or where you car is parked in the lot or what your child’s name is, you will understand.