Dumb Days: I Drove Five Miles to Find My Glasses in My Trunk

Is there a feeling worse than losing something really important? Yes. Finding it in the transportation you drove five miles to go find it.

I went to the gym on my lunch break today. I showered there, switched from my regular glasses to the prescription sunglasses that were in the eyeglass case in my gym bag, stopped by home for a quick protein snack, and then went back to work. When I got into my office I couldn't find my glasses.

"Dang," I thought. "They are out in my gym bag in the trunk."

Out to my car, I went without a coat, to quickly retrieve my glasses in their case in the side pocket of my gym bag in the trunk. But they weren't there. I looked through the interior of my gym bag in the trunk. Nothing.

"Crap," I thought. "They are probably in my coat."

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So I go back to my office and rifle through the pockets of my coat. No glasses. Now I was irritated and concerned.

"Dammit!" I said out loud. "I must have left them at the gym in the locker room."

I go back out to my car, where I once again looked through my gym bag in the trunk and didn't find my glasses. Then I got in and started driving the five miles back to the gym to look for my glasses.

On the way, I called my wife at home to see if I left them there when I stopped for my cheese, almond, and date snack. She did not find them anywhere I was in the house for those five minutes.

I pull up to the gym and park right in front not in a spot, very irritated with myself for losing something so crucial and wasting a now significant part of my workday. I go inside and look around the locker room. Nothing. I go to the front desk and ask the manager. Nothing was turned in. I thanked him for looking and headed back to my car.

One last time I went through my bag in my trunk. This time, completely emptying it out and verifying that no piece of clothing or shoe or shaving bag had the missing item in it. It did not. I again check the side pocket, again it was not there. In exasperation, I smack my open hand into the bag. In the middle of performing this action, I saw a six-inch-ish-long container in the back of my trunk. I ducked my head back down so I could look into the deeper recesses of the surprisingly large cargo area of my car.

They were with me all along. What I realized had happened was that at some point in the trip back to work I stopped hard enough for my gym bag, in my trunk, to roll forward. That motion threw the eyeglass case all the way to the back of the trunk, below my eye-line when I looked inside. But after 22 minutes, two people looking around for a thing that wasn't anywhere near them, and 4.9 miles traveled, I found my freaking glasses.