Stuff We Lose

Last week was a bit more of a challenge than I normally would undertake voluntarily. I lost my house keys. Yup. I managed to (I believe) drop my 800 pound solid-brass-1980-A-Chorus-Line-ticket key ring into a paper bag filled with recycling stuff that I put in the recycling bin for pickup. How did I not hear that sucker fall? It normally makes enough noise to wake the dead. But it didn't. Add to that, how I got in the car and drove off deepens the mystery of how I could start the car without the car fob. 

Turns out, I had my spare key in the bottom of my pockabook (okay...I'm from New York. That thing on my shoulder is neither purse nor handbag, thank you very much; it's a pockabook.) Normally, I don't carry my spare key around with me, which would've probably caused me to start searching for my big keys, but alas, it was in there because I had grabbed them to move my car and forgot to hang them back up. So at least I had a car key and a house key. 

I called the last place I knew I had the keys....Cub Foods on Robert Street...and the very kind security guy, Daejon, reviewed the store surveillance feed, spotted me at register 9, and reported I put the keys in my right-hand jacket pocket. He then followed me on the parking lot cam, went to where my car had been, and checked all around in the snow, to see if they were there. They were not there. I did call the recycling hauler to see if the truck was back yet...and it was. Empty. So much for that idea. 

Since I was also out my one and only mailbox key, I called the local locksmith, and prepared myself for a hefty stupid tax. He was lovely, assured me this is an every day event, and gave me a really good price for a new car fob. (much less than the dealer wanted.) 

The boys had to be notified their mother was an idiot. Junior Son got the first call because his house key was also on the ring. He was amazingly sympathetic and kind about it. As was the Senior son. And each looked on line to find a replacement. They commiserated; they made me feel that being sad was okay. Because it was. They had never known me without that keyring. 

the replacement

Ziggy gave me the key ring when I became artistic director of a theater back in 1980. Over the next 41 years, I added a Blockbuster scan card, two "emergency" subway tokens (the old kind with the hole in the middle,) various house keys, some mystery keys  and three dog tags: Asta, Shayni, and Peri. That thing was so heavy and made so much noise you couldn't possibly lose it without hearing it.

The Senior Son expressed doubts I would ever be able to remember what a new key ring looked like. A replacement would be less confusion for me. No need to teach me a new habit. So the boys found a duplicate. 

I'm still sad about losing all those little bits of my history, but in the end, it's just stuff. I mean, I used to rub the dogs' tags while holding the keys. I smiled every time I saw the blue Bellmore key. Even though the subway no longer takes tokens, the ones on my key ring had long ago morphed into good-luck tokens. But it really is just stuff.

Anyone who has ever sold a house and/or moved, knows about just stuff. There are things in the junk drawer we saved just in case, bits and pieces of broken things in top dresser drawers
because maybe we can still fix it. I've never been able to really empty Ziggy's top nightstand drawer because ...well...because it would be like throwing him away. But it's just stuff and one day someone, probably not me, will have the task of pitching most of it. At some point, the memories I held dear will be meaningless to someone else, and it will be easier to let go of stuff. 

As we head toward the end of another tumultuous year, I wish I could jettison some of the stuff I've carried around for the last 18 months. Covid lockdown the first time was hard enough, but facing it again is disheartening. I keep canceling plans for Barcelona. I'm beginning to think I will never see Antoni Gaudí's Casa Batlló in person.

Meanwhile, I'm shlepping a fair amount of anger under my hood these days. I'm just plain mad at all sorts of people who are proving themselves too stupid to live. People who refuse to get vaccinated. People who think the 2020 election was stolen. Elected people who refuse to fight for their constituency.

I'm angry at Senator Manchin for throwing the BUILD BACK BETTER legislation under the bus because he thinks people will use child care credits to buy drugs. Really? From ABC News:

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., privately questioned whether parents would misuse Child Tax Credit payments to buy drugs, according to three sources familiar with his comments....That proposal included an extension to the Child Tax Credit program -- which will likely lapse in January after the last payments on Dec. 15 -- along with paid family leave, an expansion of Obamacare coverage and funding for education and combating climate change. 

Senator Manchin

Even though his state would greatly benefit from those programs, Manchin kills the bill. And I want to ask all those people in places like West Virginia why they are sending representatives to Congress who will vote to harm them? Who is gonna take care of Mom, Dad, or Grandma when there's no family leave available to them? They can't afford nursing homes or in-home care. If they quit their jobs, who's gonna put food on the table? I'm angry because they vote against their own self-interest. Because when they finally do go on public assistance things like food stamps, who the hell do they think is paying for it? Does he actually believe he's helping his constituency...or his thirst for power? 

In seventh grade we learned about the three branches of government, I believed in checks and balances. I believed that people who served in Congress and the various state legislatures were in it for the good and welfare of We, the People. Sure, there are always bad guys....Joe McCarthy, Mitch McConnell, Anthony Weiner, Michelle Bachman to name a few... the list is shockingly long but I always held out hope the voters would get rid of the bad ones. Maybe not. But the longer I live, the more I wonder...and worry about the not-so-distant future. 

We, the People, have a lotta crap in our nightstand drawer, much of which we can no longer wait to toss out. That said, if the fine people of West Virginia wanna continue sending people who actually despise them to Congress, well, that's their choice. A time will come, however, when the rest of us are ready to move on. If we have to leave them behind, so be it. I am beginning to seriously believe these here United States need to divide. 

We can no longer afford the drogue chute of states that refuse to help themselves. We can no longer afford garbage debates in congress when we are facing serious challenges like climate change and health care. Just as people who refuse to vaccinate themselves against a preventable disease should find themselves excluded from public places, maybe the states who refuse to move into the 21st century should be set free to follow their own paths...and deal with consequences like exclusion, embargoes, and tariffs. 

States that wish to move forward should have the right to do so without sacrificing the general health and wellbeing of its citizens. We simply cannot afford it. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

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