by Seth Rogovoy

My eyeglasses and eyeglass case went AWOL for the last 24 hours. I came home from a road trip yesterday – during which time I know I was wearing my spectacles, as I need them only for things like driving and seeing – and shortly after getting settled in back home, late afternoon, I couldn’t put my hands on them.

I assumed I had left them in the car. I went to the car twice today and searched it. No dice.

I rummaged through every bag (there were only two) that I had on the trip, in case I had taken them off and put them in a bag from the car to the house (very unlikely), but they weren’t there, either.

I had no memory of having put them in the drawer where I usually keep them, and indeed, after several times looking through the drawer, taking everything out and putting them back in, nothing.

Several times I looked through every coat pocket I have, side pockets and inside pockets – of both winter coats, including the one I wore yesterday and the one that stayed home. That didn’t matter. There wasn’t a single eyeglass to be found.

All day long this has been nagging at me. I tried to put it out of my mind, knowing that sooner or later they would have to show up SOMEWHERE. I worried, though, that perhaps they had fallen out of a coat pocket on the way from the car to the back door – admittedly a very short distance, but problematic, as they could have been stepped on or, even worse, driven over, perhaps buried yesterday in six inches of snow (which is rapidly dwindling to nothing).

A little over 24 hours, I one last time went through the coat I was wearing yesterday. Side pockets? No, nothing but gloves. Inside pocket? No, nothing but pens. I dug around a bit more in that pocket.

But wait…. There’s a hole in that pocket! And it empties out into the inner lining of the coat. Making a huge pocket between the lining and the outer shell.

I dug around in there and … sure enough … FOUND! Eyeglasses safe inside their hard case.

And that’s today’s story of lost and found.