Just Write Communications
  • Home
  • Contact Us
  • News
  • Clients
  • Testimonials
  • Writing Tips
  • Weekly Chuckle
  • Meals We Steal
  • Bad Golf

Vindicated

11/29/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
​When our kids were young, we developed a rule when they lost something: Retrace your steps. It worked (almost always).
 
“Dad, I can’t find my scarf.”
 
“Where did you have it last? Did you leave it in the car? How about the living room couch? Let’s go look.”
 
Off we’d go, starting from point one. Moving to wherever the next logical place was. Then spot numbers three and four, if they could remember that far back. If not, I’d pose questions to jog their memory.

“Where were you before you put your bicycle away.”

“Playing over at Matt’s.”


“Okay, let’s go over to their house and see if it is there.”

As noted earlier, eventually, most of the time, it showed up if you traced your steps back far enough. I felt vindicated. Like patenting an invention. I’d figured out a crafty method that successfully worked time after time.
 
As an adult, we still have to trace our steps. Reading glasses are a perfect example. Both our parents were fond of forgetting where they placed their reading glasses. Though that happened in the latter stages of their lives, so the method of tracking your steps wasn’t as easily successful since the short-term memory often couldn’t pull up where they’d been.
 
You can go nuts trying to figure out where you left something. It happened to me recently regarding my winter cap and a Green Bay Packers scarf I’d worn outside then placed somewhere I couldn’t remember.
 
Logically, it should have gone in the laundry. I checked thoroughly in the basket at the bottom of our laundry shoot, but no dice.
 
From there, the next step was to look where I always placed the cap. That is typically in a pile next to my bed. Neither article of clothing was there. Hmmmm? What next?
 
Perhaps it was in the car. I went and looked under the seats, and on the floor in the back, but again, without success. Frustration set it.
 
You keep pushing your brain in these situations. “Okay, did I have my backpack with me somewhere and left it inside?” Nope.
 
“Did I accidently throw it on the closet floor?” Can’t find it there.
 
“Did it already get washed and it came back upstairs, but got mixed up with some other article of clothing? Rummage through all the drawers and find nothing.

Take a deep breath. Think where you’ve been in the last day.
 
This turned on the electric light bulb thought machine and I remembered wearing it to our workout facility. “Did I drop it somewhere? Did I take it off and lay it down?”
 
Going through those options, I remembered setting it down to use the electronic massage chair “OH YEAH.” Drove on down there. Checked in the lost and found.
 
Bam, right there on the shelf the instant we stepped inside. The great feeling of knowing you conquered something silly that doesn’t really matter that much: Retracing  your steps to find an article of clothing.
 
I didn’t solve the U.S. hunger problem. Nor develop a new technology to mitigate global carbon emissions. But, man, did I ever feel vindicated.

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013

    Categories

    All

Proudly powered by Weebly