For the love of Pete, don't mess with my piles!

I have never been the perfect filer but I can generally find things in my intricate system of piles. Sometimes it may take awhile but eventually I can lay my hands on whatever it was that I needed—until now. Gman and I spent at least 5 hours, yes that is F-I-V-E hours last night looking for PDQ’s Friday folder, journal, a book, half a dozen checks, an envelope of pictures and 4 one dollar bills. No dice.

Thursday two weeks ago (way back in March) was PDQ’s last day of school until today for Spring Break. I thought I would save us all the grief of coming back from Ohio and spending the evening trying to finish up homework, sign stuff, read stuff, etc. So I pulled everything out of the folder, sorted it into piles and started writing check, yearbook, field trip, and pictures. While I had the checkbook out I dug up Boobah’s pictures that were long overdue, read all the detailed instructions, wrote a check including my $10 penalty for missing the return date and put them in an envelope to return. Then I scrounged for $4 in cash to attach to a form that needed to go back for a “love note” in the yearbook. Then we pulled out the homework for PDQ to take to my parents house for the week. Finally we made her do her poetry journal and my Dad read her the book in a bag story. We were totally cooking with gas—it was Friday, a week and a half before the stuff was due and I had everything taken care of, or so I thought.

I know that I put things aside so that we could eat. I would swear on a stack of Bibles that later that evening I gave the Friday Folder filled with stuff back to PDQ and asked her to put it in her backpack by the door. A few times last week I thought about that envelope of pictures for Boobah but didn’t think much of it, it had waited this long, what was a few weeks more. Between the time I did all the signing and paying my mother was there, in my house picking up after me. Then, to add to the probability that I’ll never find anything Miss Betty came and cleaned up after us some more. Usually I manage to get through both with my piles unscathed. Finally at 11 last night I gave up. I wrote a pathetic note to PDQ’s teacher confessing my inability to keep track of stuff. Then I tried to go to sleep and all I could do was think about what the heck happened to all that stuff. I can picture it, I just can’t FIND it.