the fishers' tale: July 2011

So, I'd like to tell you a really cool story. This story begins last Friday, before 4th of July weekend. After I came home from work, Tomás and I ran some errands, went grocery shopping and also decided to hit up the farmer's market. We got some sweet cheese there. The next day, we went to D.I. and did other fun things like hang out with Zach and Olivia, which I mentioned earlier. We basically blasted through the weekend with lots of fun, hanging with friends and celebration.

Come Tuesday, Tomás mentions, "I can't find my wallet anywhere." Usually when that happens, we look around for a bit, but shrug it off thinking we'll find it pretty soon in a jacket somewhere. Well, we didn't. That day we searched high and low for it, (mostly Tomás did)—and, no luck. So I keep telling him, "Don't worry babe, we'll find it. It's just hiding from us somewhere." On Wednesday, we deep cleaned the apartment looking for his wallet all day long. Nothing. No wallet. It was nowhere to be found. And I mean, we had looked in every nook and cranny you can imagine. I'd even organized areas to make the move easier, like the random stuff in our green cubes and our filing cabinet. We'd throughly cleaned and organized our room, the kitchen, living room. Everywhere. Our apartment is not that big, where could it be?

So then, Tomás is thinking, "Crap.. I probably dropped it outside somewhere. It's gone." He called the Police Department to ask if anyone had dropped it off. He called the school lost & found. Nothing. We kept monitoring our checking account to make sure no one had gotten ahold of his wallet, and it seemed normal. There were no purchases. So, we had to conclude it was nearby, or in our apartment. But we couldn't find it anywhere.

Thursday. By now, Tomás is freaking out a little more. It's been almost a week and no sign of the wallet. Oh, did I mention that there is $70 cash in his wallet, and our Harry Potter tickets, which were $22? Yeeeah, so we were a little worried. I mean, the credit cards we can replace, but not the cash. Replacing those tickets would be a drag too. Yikes. We were praying and praying we would find it for those reasons exactly. We spent another day organizing a little more, doing laundry, and looking everywhere for it. At this point, we had looked in every possible spot in our apartment. It couldn't be here. It just couldn't. There's no way, or we would have found it by now, because our apartment is not that big!

Well, I ran a few errands in the afternoon, and came home. When I drove into our parking lot, I noticed the trash hadn't been taken out. Trash day was Wednesday (today was Thursday), and someone forgot to put it out by the curb so the trash guy could come get it. They were overflowing with bags of trash. I mentioned this to Tomás and instantly he knew. "Lorraine, my wallet is not in this apartment. It has to be in the trash." I'm thinking. No way, it can't be in the trash. I would have never accidentally thrown your wallet away.
"I'm very careful about what I throw in the trash," I told him, "it can't be there."
"That's the only other place it could be," he said.

After almost losing complete hope for finding his wallet, we decided to venture out into the dumpsters. Yum. We knew which bags were ours because they have a plain red tag on it. Tomás helped me spot a few trash bags we knew were ours. After finding them, we strategically pulled them out. We decided which one was the most recent from the weekend, and I ripped the bag open. And there it was—in plain sight. Tomás' black wallet in between the side of the bag and some trash. I couldn't believe it. I reached in to pull it out. It was soaked and kinda sticky. Gross!
"Someone must have accidently thrown it away with a bunch of our grocery bags after going grocery shopping. My wallet was on the table with all our bags of stuff." I'm not sure what it was soaked in, but we decided to buy him a new wallet. It was about time anyway. :)

This 4th of July weekend was a hit! On Saturday, we went with Zach and Olivia out to roast marshmallows and eat s'mores. Mm. On Sunday, we went to church and then slept. Oh yes, I do love the day of rest. Monday was the fourth and we celebrated it by hanging with Sister Morgan and some of our dear Writing Center alumni. We're all pretty much graduated now. The weather was delightful, and the company was great.

First, we went to the parade in the morning. Everything seemed more exciting as we chanted and yelled at just about every float, even if it was just advertising (which most of it was). We also hung out at Porter Park to enjoy some live music and people watch—at least I did.

Afterwards, we retired to Sister Morgan's beautiful abode for a BBQ with grilled corn and hotdogs. I contributed red and blue "I heart America" JELL-O jigglers to the mix.