by James Wallace Harris, Monday, December 14, 2020
Yesterday I needed to do laundry and I put on an old pair of overalls. As I was storing away my wallet and other items I was annoyed they didn’t have back pockets, or a front pocket on the bib, and that the shoulder straps were permanently attached to the bib. I remember thinking what kind of overall have straps sewn on? Eventually, I took them off, throwing them on the bed, and put on sweatpants when I discovered they were too much trouble in the bathroom. I remember thinking at the time that I didn’t remember buying any overalls like those.
Then this morning when I went to hang them back up in the closet they had back pockets, a front pocket on the bib, and the shoulder straps had hooks.
?!?!
Was Susan gaslighting me? WTF? I looked all over for the overalls I put on yesterday but couldn’t find them.
Not quite a pink light from VALIS but it sure is weirding me out.
I just put the overalls back on to see if the perspective of wearing them hid the bib fasteners and the front pocket, and maybe I just didn’t feel the back pockets. But they were all clearly there.
These have to be the same overalls because I left my wallet and other things in them. It was when I was trying to stow all my stuff that I couldn’t find the pockets I wanted.
I’m pretty sure God isn’t screwing around with me, and this is a brain fart, but it’s fucking weirding me out.
I distinctly remember looking for a front pocket on the bib and even pulling at seams thinking it was just hidden. But this morning there was clearly one pocket with a zipper, and even more obvious a second pocket with a flap and snap. Too obvious to miss – so how could I have missed them? My spare keys were still in a lower side pocket by my knee where I had put them when I couldn’t find a pocket on the bib. So I didn’t dream that.
I also distinctly remember thinking how hard it was to deal with the overalls in the bathroom because the straps were sewn on. Clearly they aren’t. And I distinctly remember trying to put my wallet in a back pocket and not finding one, so I put it in a front pocket.
Now I understand how Philip K. Dick could get so obsessed thinking he saw a pink light, even inspiring him to write three novels. The mind is a weird thing, but even then I don’t want to lose it.
JWH
Auxiliary Memory 
And that’s funny because it is exactly at moments like those that I am the most convinced that it is indeed God, that war between “good” and “evil” that is, yep, fucking with me.
And if “it,” these damnable frustrations of daily life don’t go that far up the ladder of life’s inexplicables, then I am quite content to blame the gremlins.
But the really, really scary part?
All those “great minds” who decide, oh, who should we tax today, and how much, and who should we bomb the hell out of today, and why them and not those morons over there, yeah, those “great minds,” all suffer from this same bit of human madness. So maybe when “that” guy smashes that button that nukes us all into oblivion, his final words may well be, “Wait. I was sure I saw a gremlin ready to jump on me.”
Yep, go to get my wallet,,,where it stays 24 hours a day, every day of every week, until I need it to go out, and…it ain’t there. Search the house, here, there, and everywhere and then, two hours later, back to where it was “supposed” to be and…and there it is.
And then, way off in the distance, I hear all that maniacal laughter. And “they” are now quite happy and I am then “allowed” to get on with my life.
Welcome to Earth, James.
Hope you’re doing well and, still a bit early, but I hope you have a grand Christmas.
Thanks. Randy, I’m doing pretty good and looking forward to Christmas. Just a little bedazzled by my brain tricking me. I hope Santa brings you and everyone else what they asked for, and we all get recharged with human kindness by watching Christmas movies.
Happens to me regularly with my purse. 😦
my favorite is putting something where it won’t get lost and then forgetting where i “hid” it.
My friend Connell told me that he thinks this kind of thing happens to older people all the time. He says the key is the story we make up to explain it.
S—t happens. One time I came into an apartment I was renting using my regular key ring with my car keys. I had to turn right around and go out again to a meeting. But I couldn’t find my keys. I had just come in and hadn’t changed my clothes. I looked everywhere and then it was too late for the meeting.
So I started in one corner of the apartment committed to examine every inch of it if it meant tearing up the rug. I would go from one corner to the adjacent corner, open every drawer, the refrigerator, the oven, everything. They had to be somewhere in the apartment because I had come in with them. Of course I had checked the door right away.
They were in the toe of a pair of shoes in the closet. I hadn’t worn the shoes in a while.
That one happened to me with a tiny bottle of medicine (Nitroglycerine). . I had to get a new Rx because I could NOT find it anywhere. It turned up in the toe of some shoes. I can only think it fell and toppled and bounced in – ???
Wow, that’s weird man. I’m impressed you searched for the kids so systematically. Why did you go into the closet? Do you remember going into the closet?
Cue the Twilight Zone music….
You probably put them on backwards on Sunday.
Of course the most likely possibility is that you accidentally shifted from one quantum worldline to another. A common occurrence.
A less likely alternative, but one that has happened to me on a number of occasions, is that after you actually put on your overalls, you had a dream in which you put on dream overalls. Just as one’s in-a-dream house tends to come equipped with extra rooms, monsters, missing floors, dead loved ones, and other appurtenances, I imagine that if dream overalls become a focus of dream attention, they are likely to wander.away from their real features.
You can tell which of these explanations is correct based on where you found your wallet the next day. If in a front pocket, you are in a different universe and you should keep your eye out for other changes. For instance, your partner is no longer the same woman you fell for, and you should keep your eye open for the likely discrepancies in memories, tastes in food, sexual preferences, etc. Reading Peter Clines’ “The Fold” might be helpful.
If, on the other hand, you found your wallet in your back pocket, then you can rest assured that the alternative world from which your discrepant memories arose was the world of Dream. I am not entirely sure why most people find this alternative less disquieting, but I have observed that they do.
Take from this resolution of uncertainty such comfort as you can.
That’s hilarious. I might be crazier than I thought. The trouble is I can’t remember where I found my wallet. I’ve thought and thought. I had taken it out automatically to hang up the overalls before I realized something had changed.
I couldn’t find my wallet or key-fob. Panic! I retracted my steps, I searched the ground where I may have dropped them. Nothing! My wife checked my movements inside the house and outside the house. Nada! Finally, I checked the pants I wear when working in the basement. Bingo! I wore those pants when I moved my car out of the garage and onto the driveway to make room for my son’s car (he was visiting after driving from California to spend Thanksgiving with us). Usually, I would transfer the keys and wallet back into my “regular” pants from my “work” pants but I forgot with the excitement of my son’s visit.
Any variation in ROUTINE can sow the seeds of Disaster!
It begins…