Torsgad November 10, 2022

 

The Lost is Found

         I was ecstatic. I found it in a place I had looked before, and there it was all this time right behind the drivers seat of my car! I had looked there, I swear! I had exhausted all the possibilities of where it might be, and had accepted that through my own negligence alone, I had lost an important power tool, costing me nearly two hundred dollars, within a half-mile of my farm.
 
    I remembered where I had used it last -- yeah, in a deer stand, and I remembered going back out to the deer stand on the four-wheeler. I climbed the ladder, opened the door, grabbed the tool, and carried it back to the ATV. Then, I thought, I stuffed it in my jacket and zipped it up. Why didn’t I put it in the front rack storage?? For the life of me, I couldn’t remember what I did with it when I got home.

    So I went looking. Did I lose it going down and up the ditch?  I knew I had to cross a steep ditch off the county road to get near the stand, and had to go straight down to the bottom. Then I had to stand on the foot wells and lean over the handlebars as I ascended the side of the ditch on the opposite side. I just knew I would’ve known if it slipped out doing that, or heard it fall against the wheeler, but I usually wear earplugs when I drive it so that might be a lost cause.

     And, I walked the ditch too, thinking that if I didn’t hear it drop, it might have anyway, and laid in the windrowed grass left by the county ditch mower. Not there.

    I called a neighbor who I thought I remembered seeing on his land opposite mine that day burning a wetland and ditch. But no, he hadn’t seen it along the road or by my mailbox or anying.

    I looked in my two pickups; and in my two sheds including the 1997 Ford Escort wagon I parked in my yard five years ago. Nothing in there, but the 15-foot diameter above ground swimming pool I inherited from one of our kids, and a couple dozen picture frames I got somehow. Oh, and snake skins. Yeah, there were snake skins too.

    Of course I looked in the house. And my work area; the workbench, under the workbench. By my desk here -- and under my desk here. I looked everywhere ... I thought. Even behind the drivers side seat in my car. How did I miss it?

  Speaking of which ... 

   I took my deer to Custom Cuts, meat processing by Greenbush on Monday. Looking on the Google map for directions, it looked to me like a simple enough route. They expected me about 10 o'clock.

I looked at this map and got it in my head that the little red slot was Greenbush; the vertical line Roseau County 11.

    About 10:04 am, I couldn't find 230th Avenue off which they were located, and against my usual proclivity not to, I just called the business to find out how I should go to get there, from where I was -- momentarily lost .... knowing my wife would be so proud that I asked somebody for directions on my own. 

   "Hi," I said. "I called this morning and told someone I talked to that I'd be there at 10, but it doesn't look like I'm going to make it. I'm at the Kittson County line on County Road four. Where are you guys?"

    "Well, take County Road 4 and go to Greenbush, we're just three miles from town, " the guy said cheerfully.

   "I've done that already. Been through Greenbush," I said. "I'm west of Greenbush. I'm at the Kittson County line. I must have gone too far or something." 

   "Only about 15 miles," the guy chuckled. "We're three miles east of Greenbush. Watch for the sign."

   Words alone will not express my feelings of utter stupidity as his reply sunk in. I was totally flabbergasted. See: https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/flabbergasted for close proximity almost as much as finding the lost drill behind my drivers seat. I'm losing it.