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A Net Negative
day. And in doing so, I just about lost my mind, as well as the goodwill of my family. I noticed it was missing last Thursday morning, just as my wife and I were going out to run a few errands. It wasn’t in its usual place in the outside pocket of my shoulder bag, but I didn’t panic because I remembered having used it the previous day at my desk in the bedroom to make a credit card purchase. I called out to my wife to ask her if she could bring me the my wallet, which I had obviously left on the desk.
But she couldn’t find it on the desk. I came looking, but I couldn’t find it either. So under a veneer of rationality, the search began. Where was I when I last used it? Where precisely had I seen it last? I scoured the bedroom and then fanned outwards, even checking the pockets of coats I hadn’t worn in months and cupboards I hadn’t opened for weeks. Nothing.
At this point, I began searching for alternative explanations. Maybe I had ventured outdoors and someone had somehow stoien it, I asked my wife about five times whether she was absolutely sure I had been in the house the whole time since Wednesday afternoon. I don’t think she was too pleased the second time I asked, and by the fifth time I could sense that my repeated askings were somewhat counterproductive. But at least I wasn’t going to get a call from Visa HQ asking me whether I had just rented a luxury villa In Tijuana.
We developed a working hypothesis. There was a small garbage pail next to my desk. I must have inadvertently knocked the wallet into the pail and then failed to notice it when I emptied the pail’s contents into our duly tagged big garbage bag, which as bad luck would have it had already been picked up by eager garbage contractors that very morning.
It did nothing to alleviate my frustration at the task that now lay before me. I was going to have to get a new driver’s licence, health card and Visa card, pronto, and I was going to have to admit to my actions at every step on my journey. “You did what? Knocked it into a garbage pail! That wasn’t very bright.” Plus the wallet contained some cash, which was going to be consumed not by me for my pleasure but by some anonymous machine that was indifferent to the fact that it was consuming something of value. I didn’t need the hassle and begrudged the time; it was all so unfair.
Needless to say, I was emitting a few subtle signals of anger, frustration and despair for the whole of Thursday, which did not go unnoticed by the other members of our household—my wife and my son. Anyone who dared offer a suggestion as to where the wallet might be found quickly had her or his head snapped off by the wallet owner, sarcastically dismissing the suggestion and stating that of course he had already looked at the suggested location. Dd they think he was dumb or something?
It was late Thursday evening when I finally found the wallet. It was in the bedroom. wedged in between the bed and a blanket box. I must have had the wallet in my hands—presumably so as to take it back to to its regular location in my shoulder bag—but then put the wallet down on top of the blanket box, opened the lid to get something out, causing the wallet to slip out of sight; and then forgotten that I had had the wallet in my hands a few moments before. It was only a couple of steps away from the place I had remembered leaving it. If I had only checked that vicinity a little more thoroughly in the first place, I would have found it straight away.
Needless to say, the relief I felt in finding it was abundant. But it did not match the intensity of the anxiety I had felt and caused my family in losing it and trying to find it. Overall, it was definitely a net negative experience.
And the lesson that I take from it is a sobering one. Don’t try to do two things—even simple things—at once, because in attempting to do the second task you will probably botch the first task and potentially cause yourself and others considerable grief. Accept that you aren’t firing on all cylinders any more. And remember, they haven’t yet come up with a cure—or even a treatment—for stupidity.
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