Good Thing my Head is Attached

I can't find my credit card, this morning. The greengrocer is coming any minute, and my Visa is nowhere to be found. I think I threw it in the garbage by accident. It's in none of its usual hiding places (nor yet any unusual ones). It simply isn't here. In an apartment this size, there are only so many places for a credit card to be. It's not in the pockets of any of my coats. It's not in the washer or the dryer. It's not on my desk, or on either of the coffee tables. It's not under the couch, the fridge, or the dishwasher, nor is it in any cabinet or drawer. It's not in my chequebook, or folded between the pages of a paperback. It's nowhere. It's gone. I have no credit card.

I don't know what I'm going to do. The grocery shop says my order's already gone out, so I've no choice but to pay. But I haven't got any cash, and they don't take cheques. They take ATM cards, but I haven't used mine in years. I don't know the PIN number. Maybe I can phone the bank and have them authorise the transaction by hand. Can they do that? I suppose I'll find out.

This is all very distracting. I'm supposed to be writing the first chapter of my novel today, and all I can think about is the grocery man. He'll probably get mad. He might even refuse to hand over the food. Then, I won't have anything to eat. I didn't put in my order till I'd polished off nearly everything in the house. All I've got left is half a packet of ginger candy, a string of aging sausages, and seven saltines. What am I supposed to do with that? I can't even make sandwiches. It's my own fault, of course. I'm forever doing this sort of thing. The bank will probably yell at me, too. This will be the second credit card I've lost in as many years. When I get a new one, I'm going to hang a bulldog clip on the wall, and always keep the card in that clip. (Anyone fancy a wager?--the clip gets lost within a year. Do I hear ten bucks? Ten bucks?)

Yesterday, I took the words "Howard Glassman" out of the Notepad file with "NOVEL" written in it, and replaced "NOVEL" with the following:

Then, I decided to write an outline, so I wouldn't forget my idea halfway through. The outline used up five pages. I renamed my file "novel_outline.txt," and started a new one for the novel proper. By that time, my five hours were nearly up. I wrote a mean poem against Michael Behe (for PhaWRONGula, of course), and shut down the word-processor. I felt tentatively smug. I hadn't had a novel-worthy idea in ages. I mean, I'm not entirely convinced my current idea is good, but it beats the hell out of such gems as these:

WALKING ACROSS ALBERTA IN A RAT COSTUME - Some guy walks across Alberta in a rat costume, erecting signs with bunches of bananas crossed out. He tells anyone who will listen that he is the banana patrol. It is his job to prevent bananas from entering Alberta, and destroy any errant fruits that do sneak in*.

THE SILLY BIRDER'S GUIDE TO SILLY BIRDS - A birdwatching guide devoted entirely to seagulls: the secret lives of seagulls, the social habits of seagulls, cannibalism among seagulls (does this even happen?), recipes for seagull, et cetera.

HOWARD GLASSMAN - This year's April 1 joke, only...longer. 60,000 words longer. Ouch.

The grocery man still isn't here. I've wasted twenty minutes, now, and nothing. I had hoped he'd come early, so I could get the worry and unpleasantness over with first thing. I can't concentrate, with this hanging over my head. This is worse than the spot on the wall (which, by the way, is still there). This is worse than--worse than last time I lost my credit card. I know I say this all the time, about all manner of things, but this is the worst. It's the pits. What a pain!

One final observation before I go: this whole novel-writing lark reminds me of Il Trovatore: sounds wonderful, when done well, but, Gawd, what a trainwreck!

Half an hour later: Blimey, what a lot of fuss over nothing. The grocery man was happy to take a cheque, and the bank will send (yet another) new card. I crown myself twit of the month.

* Alberta is a province in Canada where rats are forbidden. All rats entering Alberta are destroyed by "rat patrols." Presumably, the guy in the rat costume is making some kind of misguided protest against this practice. We'll never find out for sure, though. I'm not using this idea, not if I live a thousand years.