Update

I haven’t been blogging much lately because I’ve been having a nervous breakdown.

Remember how my kid lost his beloved baseball glove?

And then later how through divine intervention, or someone finding it, he was reunited with it?

Well, a few weeks ago he told me that he lost it again.

“How could you lose it again?” I yelled because I find that if you’re loud enough most of your problems will run away.

“It’s not my fault,” he said. And then implied that our new cleaning lady stole it.

Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t rule her out. I mean, we didn’t do an extensive background check, so who knows.

As I was preparing to call the authorities, my son said “or maybe I left it on the field.” That sounded like crazy talk to me, but whatever. Hope dies last, apparently, right after common sense.

“Maybe it’ll be returned to you again,” I tried this “optimism” bullshit on for size.

And we were blessed with another miracle and it turned out that the mitt was in his coach’s team bag. Probably because the cleaning lady, overcome by guilt, snuck it in there.

“I don’t like that this coach took his mitt,” Mama later said. “What kind of pervert takes children’s toys?”

Despite this happy reunion, I could not be happy.

Because my black pants are still missing and I believe it’s now a cold case.

I was talking to my husband about it last week, trying to come up with coping strategies. Unfortunately, while I was thinking along the lines of firebombing the dry cleaners, he had an insane idea of buying a new pair of pants.

“I already tried!” I keened. “They were out!”

And then he suggested that I look online, as though my pants were a Russian mail order bride.

So I did. And the thing is- if you’re shopping for a pair of black pants at BananaRepublic.com, there are about a million of them, and I don’t mean to sound racist, but they all look exactly alike. I chose the pair that I thought were my beloved pants and waited for them to arrive. Except one morning I woke up knowing that something was wrong. And what was wrong was the price. I didn’t remember what I paid for beloved pants, but while I was sleeping, my brain worked out that it was a different price point than what was online. I was in pre-despair. The despair came later, when the pants arrived. They were not my beloved pants, although I like them a lot.

Fortunately, I can end this post on a happy note.

Yesterday, I stopped by the Banana Republic store near my office and instantly recognized my pants. I bought a pair and am now happy again.

But don’t think that this experience hasn’t changed me.

Because it has.

From now on, the only place I’m leaving my pants is on the baseball field.

That way I know they’ll be in the coach’s bag.

One year ago ...

• Winner - 2014