Sun., Aug. 22, 1999
"But then
Rutherford tried looking in the other pocket of his smoking jacket
and sure enough, there it was."
- James Hilton's original
closing line to his classic novel, "Lost Horizon"
Ten long, hard hours of intense
sleeping without a single break have often left me feeling exhausted and
confused, but this morning was the first time that I had trouble locating
my pillow after returning to consciousness. I finally found it -
right under my head where it belonged - but it took me both hands and the
compass I use to navigate around my more obvious nightmares to do so.
The search for the mattress edge came much closer to being outright impossible,
but with luck, perseverance, and the unexpected help of the force of gravity,
I finally found that, too.
"Lose something?" I heard the voice of my wife say as I entered the porch
thinking it was the bathroom, having left the robe I thought I'd thrown
on tightly belted around our bedroom lamp.
"Umm, I seem to have misplaced my sense of direction," I admitted to a
table which looked surprisingly like my wife in the full light of the afternoon.
"As well as your shyness," she added, holding a section of the morning
newspaper in front of my body's prized assets as a neighbor drove by with
a honk.
"Let's continue this discussion in the kitchen - I'm starved," I muttered
to the floor, which rather rudely refused to follow as I climbed into a
sink.
"Have you lost your mind as well as your shyness?" the voice of my wife
inquired from (as best as I could tell) the general direction of Andorra.
"That's the good glassware from Taco Bell that you happen to be poking
a toe into!"
I sat as still as I could with a fork sticking some body part I couldn't
quite put a finger on before realizing it just happened to be a body part
I could never put a finger on in mixed company, anyway.
To take my mind off the pain, I pondered the possibilities. A) I
was losing my mind; B) I had already lost my mind; C) I had yet to get
around to losing my mind despite that 30-year-old "To Do" list I
always carried. Unable to decide which was the right choice, I impatiently
reached for a doughnut and succeeded only in knocking over the toaster
oven.
"Hey!" the voice of my wife came floating by again. "Next time you
try to take your mind off your pain, try not to take my shirt off with it,
ok?!"
It was at this point that I realized just how badly disoriented I really
was.
Attempting to retrace my steps only led me to the garage. Every new
train of thought I tried to start ended up derailing three feet from the
depot. When I tried to collapse into a pool of tears, I hit my head
on a ceiling fan.
"Just try to follow the sound of my voice," my wife yelled from what seemed
many miles away, just like that guy in an old episode of "The Twilight
Zone" whose little girl had fallen through a hole behind her bed into another
dimension.
"Maybe if you turn off the fan, I'll be able to hear you better," I sputtered
in the general direction of the moon.
I know it sounds silly, but I was beginning to feel like quite the fool.
I mean, I'd heard of people being lost in space. I'd even heard of
people being lost in Yonkers. But lost in your own house?
On top of your own spice rack?!
A shiver ran up my spleen, having obviously mistaken it for my spine.
"Wait! I know what's going on!" I heard my wife's voice drift my
way from Timbuktu. A rustling of newspapers followed.
"I'm suffering a relapse of the shell shock I had after the paperboy hit
me full in the face with the want ads section back in '93?!"
"No, no. Here it is - just listen! 'People who rely on the
global satellite system called GPS to help them navigate should closely
watch the network this weekend as it resets itself, possibly throwing millions
of electronic direction-finders out of whack.'"
"Oh, no!" I wailed, having long ago junked my innate sense of direction
for the $3.95 Global Positioning System receiver a friend had picked up
for me in New York's Chinatown.
"Seems the network of 27 earth orbiting satellites used to aid navigation
around the world was programmed in 1980 with a calendar of just 1,024 weeks.
Just before 8 p.m. last night, that calendar expired and reset to week
one."
"That would explain my sudden desire to shake my booty again," I whimpered,
sadly nodding my elbow.
WHACK!
"Hey!"
"Sorry - I was just trying to reset your system," my wife apologized.
"Did it work?"
"You certainly seem closer than you did before, but - "
WHACK! WHACK! WHACK!
"Stop that! Decapitation is worse than discombobulation, ya know!"
"Sorry. Lucky for you, I have a back-up plan."
"What?"
"Let me draw ya a picture."
"Hey, I may be discombobulated, but I'm not stupid!"
"Drawing you a picture IS my back-up plan, goofy! Hang on!"
And that's how I came to be the proud owner of a hand-drawn picture of
my home's floor plan. When that proved too hard to master, my wife
just drew me a map. It's taken a bit of getting used to (especially
since I first thought one inch on the map equaled one mile in the house
instead of one foot) but I've finally made it to my computer tonight in
time to type this entry.
Tomorrow I plan on having her make me a complete set of maps - one for
the yard, one for the neighborhood, and one showing where she hid all the
gifts we got for our wedding 17 years ago if I can trick her into doing
so in the heat of drawing. If nothing else, I know I won't be letting
her leave for work tomorrow morning until she has laid down a trail of
crumbs from the bedroom to the cookie jar.
And I know that I'll never, ever again allow myself to become so dependent
on technology that my libido can't find my fantasies without its assistance.
Well, not unless prices of GPS receivers come way down from $3.95.
Right now, though, I need to go take a shower using visual flight rules
and hope my life doesn't end up in the toilet in the process.
If there's no new entry here by Tuesday, please notify the Coast Guard....
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