Where the hell is my $!#@%ing baseball glove?!”
I looked everywhere: in the closet, in the garage, under the dining room table, behind the couch, in the oven, on the patio . . . I finally stormed into my bedroom, where my wife was watching TV.
“Have you seen my baseball glove?”
“Why do you need your baseball glove at 10:30 on a Saturday night?”
Normally, the answer to this question would involve me making mildly to extremely inappropriate suggestions involving a trip to trashy lingerie and some Jack Daniels . . . but I was faced with a serious problem. I had a fever, and the only prescription was my baseball glove!
“I’m going to Dodger Stadium with my dad tomorrow morning for their Father’s Day ‘play catch with dad in the outfield’ event, and I need my glove!”
I started tearing through my dresser.
“You think your baseball glove is underneath your T-shirts?” She said.
“Well . . .” I realized how irrational I was being, and decided that I wouldn’t tell her about the washing machine, freezer, dishwasher, or down the street behind that bush that covers the hole in the fence. “It’s just really important to me.”
“When did you last see it?” She said.
“I let the kids use it for street hockey a couple days ago.”
“Did you look in the closet with the other baseball stuff?”
“Yes.”
“Garage?”
“Yes! I looked in all the places it should be!” I kicked the side of the bed and hurt my toes. “GodDAMMIT!”
I stormed out of our room, and picked up the kitchen phone to call my dad, and tell him I couldn’t go. When I put the receiver to my ear, it was beeping that I had a message. I automatically hit “9#” and typed in my password.
“You have . . . ONE . . . new message,” the friendly voice said.
I pushed the “1” key twice and listened.
“Hi, it’s dad. I just wanted to let you know that I talked with your brother, and he is going to come down and meet us at nine tomorrow morning! I am so excited to be spending my Father’s Day with all my children at Dodger Stadium! It’s going to be great! I love you, Wilbert. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“That was your last message. To save it, press 2. To erase it, press 3.”
I instinctively hit 3 and hung up.
“Oh crap. I bet I’m going to want that message back, someday.”
After another fifteen minutes or so of searching, I ended up back in my bedroom.
“Sorry about that,” I said to my wife, “It’s just really important to me that I get to go tomorrow.”
“It will turn up, Wil. Just relax.”
“I wonder if I put it in my backpack,” I said.
I keep my backpack between my bedside table, and the closet door. It’s not uncommon for a few T-shirts, or my running clothes to end up stacked on top of my backpack, as part of the “bachelor cleanup.” I looked down and saw a couple of magazines and a book sitting atop the laundry I’d folded (but failed to put away) a few days before; underneath it, was my backpack.
I reached down, past all that junk, and picked up my backpack. The first compartment was open and empty. The second compartment had an old Vanity Fair, a Clif bar, and about a pound of sand from the beach in it . . . but no glove.
I sighed. “This sucks so much,” I said. I picked up my clothes to replace my backpack, and saw my glove sitting on the floor.
“I found it! Yes!”
“Where was it?” Anne said.
“It must have been on top of my backpack. Thank god.”
“See? I told you it would turn up.” She smiled at me.
Even though I’ve had this glove for years, and it’s a broken in as it’s going to get, I put a baseball in the pocket, wrapped it up, and put it on the floor next to the bed . . . it seemed like the right thing to do.
Next time: Hey dad, want to have a catch?