Lost My Gift Card

I bought new shorts because I need more shorts.  Every one I try on in the fitting room is yet another reminder my body is not the calorie-burning furnace it was twenty years ago.  But I found one whose waist I could button up without me sucking my stomach in, so I purchased it, at the Gap, at a discount.

I finally used it for this week, and it was then that I realized it had one big drawback: Its hip pockets are really small.  So small that, if I wanted to get a card from my left pocket, which I put everything except my wallet and keys, I would need to pull (more like yank) everything out in order to find what I want.

On Tuesday, which was my last day before heading back to work on a project that lasted a lot shorter than I anticipated, I had a lot of things I wanted to do: Watch the latest Star Trek, get my shoes shined, visit my shrink, exercise, gas up the car, and buy creamer.  That creamer I planned to buy at Target, and not with my money, but with a gift certificate given to me way back when I was an immediate supervisor.  My boss gave me this gift card as a parting gift, but like with all things I've been given I just threw it in my room and didn't think about it until lately.  Once I realized she put $25 on it, I thought it was time to use it.  And I did, and I planned on using more of it.

But since I didn't want to waste time looking for it through my left pocket, I had a new plan I formulated on Monday: Just until I used them, I would put my Target gift card and frequent movie-watcher card in my right pocket, with my pocket and keys.  After Tuesday, I'd switch them back.  I had planned this, but I didn't do it, I think, until I was at the concession stand purchasing my popcorn and pop.

After working out that evening, and just before going to Target, and stopped at a red light, I reached into my right hip pocket, or at least I think.  I saw my frequent movie-watcher card, but not the Target gift card.  I panicked and, once parked at Target, I unloaded all the contents in my left pocket onto the passenger seat.  And I couldn't find it.  And I so pissed off because there was money there that hadn't been spent yet.

This is what I do, box myself into screwing up because of idle thinking and piss-poor planning.  In retrospect it was a huge mistake to put two cards in a spot I'm not used to, and I should have thought that, as I suspect, those cards could slip out of my pocket if I need to reach into and take out my wallet, which one does often.  This wouldn't have happened if I just kept that damn card in my left pocket, but I got so damn concerned that these shorts make that left hip pocket huge like a goiter that I thought I could make it easier on myself if I made this one switch, just for this one day.  I should have known that I was inviting disaster.

I went everywhere Tuesday, so I could have lost it anywhere -- the movie theater, walking downtown to the shoe shiner, at my psychiatrist, at the community center, at the gas station, even in my car.  I called my shrink in case I lost it at his office, but neither he nor his secretary has called me back yet, oddly.  Meanwhile, I was so desperate that I woke up early Thursday morning to go to downtown Minneapolis and walk to the Lisa's Shoe Shine to see if Lisa found it.  She didn't see it.

God, I so hate myself right now.

---

I have gone through enough of my receipts to see that there was more than $13 left on that gift card which probably has been used by someone by now.  I feel so stupid that this gift card, which has been in my possession for more than two years, has been lost and wasted.  And for a guy whose hours (and thus wages) have been massively cut to my surprise, I need as much money "I have earned" as I can get.

But it's gone, goddammit.  It's gone for good.