Smudger Snippets: Have You Ever
Created | Updated Nov 25, 2012
I suppose it's because I have so much time on my hands these days, that all these memories come flooding back to me.
Have You Ever
You know that deep sickening feeling you get when something really bad has happened, or you have had something stolen. That feeling of total disbelief comes over you, and your brain just can not take in what has happened you. Your car has been stolen, but you still stand in the area it was parked, and still keep looking around, as if someone has just moved it. Your brain goes into panic mode, and you find it difficult even to breathe normally, you simply cannot believe this has happened to you, I mean this sort of thing happens to other folk, not you.
If it’s something smaller you have lost, like keys for example, you keep looking, even though you have searched that area before. You find yourself going through your pockets or hand bag, umpteen times, just in case you missed them the last time you searched, which must have been all of, oooh two minutes ago. Then just to make things even worse, there is always that person, who thinks they are helping, by saying, “Well, where did you put them down?” you feel like screaming back at them, saying “If I knew that, I wouldn’t be looking for them now, would I?”
Of course your response to that depends totally on how close to you that person is, and could your relationship with that person survive that angry reply? The longer the search goes on, the more frustrated you become, and at some point you start to doubt yourself, and you have to convince yourself that the object you lost was indeed with you earlier on.
In the end, the relief that over comes you when you eventually find the object is better that the feeling you get when you have been bursting to go to the toilet for a long time, all of a sudden, the world is at peace, and the euphoria overtakes all your emotions.
The reason this subject came into my mind was because of something that happened to me recently. My wife had bought me one of those modern iPhones, on a contract deal, for my birthday, which was expensive to say the least. Ever since then it has been with me every time I leave the house: if my wife does have a panic attack, then she can call me up, no matter where I am, and I can help calm her down, by going through the breathing exercises that were written on a pamphlet left by the doctor on a recent visit.
On that occasion I had left the house in a hurry, in order to get to the Post Office before it closed, and had put on my old jacket, as it was closer to hand, and slipped the phone into one of its pockets. Then later on, after leaving the Post Office ( which I had got to in time), I was in the supermarket, and went to use the phone to call my wife, about an item she had asked me to get especially for her. Then, to my horror, I could not find the phone in my pocket. That panicky feeling that I mentioned earlier, along with all the emotions, over took me.
After searching my clothing, many times, I left the trolley with all my shopping in it, at the customer help desk, and rushed, well as fast as I can these days, out to my car. When I arrived at the car my hands were shaking, and I don’t know which of the emotions what causing that, but I eventually heard the clunk of the central locking releasing the mechanism, and I opened the door so quickly, that I almost knocked myself over.
After I had searched everywhere I could think of that a phone could possibly end up, I was at my wits end, and even started to argue myself whether I had taken the phone when I left the house. In the end I gave up, and just sat down on the ground beside the open car door, still trying to remember all the movements that I had made since getting into the car. I leaned forward to grab the driver’s seat back rest, to pull myself up from the ground, when my eyes caught a glimpse of something black, tucked in the metal frame under the driver’s seat.
I have no idea how the phone ended up in that position, but it explained why I could not feel it while rubbing my hand all over the carpet under the seat. The fact that I found it in the end, changed my mood instantly, and the feeling of relief just overwhelmed me, and that feeling of euphoria, that I mentioned earlier, was vastly increased upon my arrival at home, when our smallest grandchild, aged 16 months, came running towards me, saying Hiya Gundad, Oh! What a feeling.
