I lost my keys sometime last night. Like some sort of cosmic sick joke. One of my roommates (God bless his forgetful heart) always leaves his stuff behind. Always. His stuff is either constantly stolen or lost somewhere. More often than not, he drives sans license. And I'd get upset with him. You may too if you were to be awakened in the middle of the night to make a bail trip to the local precinct, spill out your guts - and some of your best friends' - trying to raise the appropriate cash to spring him loose, and arrive at the station only to find that he and your cohorts are laughing at you, "April Fools." Ok, that only happened one time. It's still funny to re-create. Definitely not as fun for the listener. But often I would have to schlep to the front room to throw my keys out the window so that he could retrieve his sense of casa.
Often, he would leave the apartment with a wire hanger (one time I swore he had a plastic hanger).
But today after church I noticed all my stuff is missing. My backpack with practically all my work, my dirty ol' trucker's hat, my checkbook, my headset and about ten burned but private hip-hop cd's (I can't stand the concept of bootlegging), my sweater with the little holes in the armpits. I looked all over the place for it. I can leave it for two or three hours unattended in a so-called secular place, such as the coffee-shop across the street. I can't leave it an hour in a small and semi-crowded church down the aisle from me?
So, why am I writing about this? It doesn't really fit my profile of what one of my blogs should be. I'm supposed to write about the art of it all. But I'm merely frustrated and the comedy of it all is only merely buffering the ensuing, deliberate pain. I'm feeling like shaking even now. I trust God, and that's why I'm not freaking out, but I'm not really calm or necessarily learning anything.
Then again... Maybe that's what the phrase "retrieve a sense of casa" is about. My things provide me with a sense of security, a sense of the familiar and la familia. To have those things violated in my sanctuary makes me all the less comfortable, robs my house, so to say. And my house has been robbed, quite a few times, so I know how that feels. Yeah, not pretty, but also kind of base-less. Kind of like this post.
Heeeey, this is my kind of post! You're even doing to that James Joyce-esque monologue. That's wonderful.
ReplyDeleteThat April fools story is hilarious, sorry to laugh at your expense, but that's pretty classic.
As for your keys, you're doing the right thing to stay calm, I on the other hand would be close to checking into the psych ward. Yes, trust in the Lord.
Yeah, I went through an attempted break in last summer while I was home, not a cool thing to deal with.
But once again, I like this post. It has no direction, and I can definitely relate to that :)
Berecha.
The April Fool's story doesn't end there, my friend. Oh, it goes into debauchery. For, after I had found everything and everybody in fine working order, I was sufficiently steamed. I started plotting a revenge scheme as I raced to tell the other "victims." When I found out that it wasn't an April Fool's joke, the revenge plot came to a boil. I would just pretend for the next couple of days that I didn't believe it actually happened and every time the culprits would try to apologize, I'd tell them to tell the other fifteen or so people I "woke up that night, trying to get some money to bail you out."
ReplyDeleteAfter getting a small hand-full of these people into the story, I spent the next couple days shaming all four of them. Until I slowly, one-by-one, dropped the bomb.
I'm such a dirty boy. :)
(honestly, you had to be there. i wish i could tell a story with some like, real suspense in it. that just sounded like a middle school attempt at edgar allen poe with catholic guilt. but it was pretty develish. to this day, my roommate doesn't like talking about it.)