Personal belongings do go astray
We’ve all done it. Gone somewhere and left personal belongings behind. It’s what makes the stuff “ours”. We expand our personal space to the point where the stuff not attached just gets out of reach. One more reason for tying your shoelaces well. And your belt. And the strap around your cowboy hat, if you have one. Today, my parent training was called upon to teach the corollary skill to one of my young’uns; getting the stuff back.
The concert last night, involving more than 150 performers, was in a new and unfamiliar location. With the pressure of performance, a new space and the temptation of a night out with friends, the school bag that went along for who know’s what reason (oh yes, this was a school activity. Whatever!) didn’t leave the building. Think of an Elvis in reverse. The new hall had new staff, protective of the new surroundings, so their only goal was to empty all the people spaces and lock the doors. The teachers had a truckload of expensive musical gear to return to the school, so they weren’t playing schoolbag shepherd either. And we, as parents, were actively discouraged from going behind the scenes by all others involved. The bag was finally reported as missing well after midnight.
My job list today was long, involving a trip to the veterinarian for shots, some shopping and getting son #3 to become proactive on the schoolbag search. After the realization that a new concert hall might also have a new phone listing, the lesson required phoning around. I watched several aborted conversation attempts with the 411 robot before a phone number led to an answering machine. So far, no good.
Later in the afternoon, a subsequent attempt reached a real live person, who agreed that a bag had been found and could be recovered within the next thirty minutes or tomorrow evening at the concert hall where another show was on the marquee. The mad dash was on. Off to school to get the teacher in our lives, and a race across the city on low gas. Of course the only place to park was in a city bus loading zone, but we have thick skins around here. In to the concert hall with minutes to spare, and after some calls from the ticket booth, a person from the office upstairs brought the bag (containing the school book needed for a final assignment over the weekend). Thanks were offered to all involved, and we headed off to buy gas and decide on how to spend the next few hours.
We were already in the Old City, so why not play tourist for a bit? I don’t do that much; other things seem to interrupt, like jobs and a real existence, but we played the Fantasy Island role, with supper in a restaurant, touring boutiques and listening to a decent blues band playing halfway down an alley. A total break from our usual routine. Think of it as training, in case anyone comes to visit us…
