As I drove into the driveway last night, I found something flapping on the ramp to the building next door. I parked the car in the garage and walked across. The building was up for lease for a long while now and was it beginning to look abandoned. Abandoned buildings are great for illegal activities. I remembered the words of our neighbourhood vigilante “Keep a lookout for unknown objects lying around” and being the good citizen that I am, I owed it to myself at least to find out what the flapping was all about.
As I closed the distance between me and the ramp, I could make out a grey jacket. Did someone leave it behind? I approached the jacket gingerly, unsure whether there was an explosive or bomb kept hidden in the pocket.
“Call the police,” a voice whispered in my head said.
“Don’t be a scaredy cat, just look at it,” said the other voice in my head as I hesitated to pick it up.
I listened to the other voice and picked it up. It looked strangely familiar. Where had I seen it before?
Then it struck me, it was the perfect colour of my grey flannel trousers, my favourite ones which was part of a suit that I’d got for my job interview. In fact it was part of the suit that I’d lost in a rather strange way.
I’d got the job but I remember that I’d lost the jacket. It was a warm Spring day and the children wanted me to horse around with them in the park. I took off the jacket and draped it across the park bench, I didn’t want it to get sweaty and messy. After an hour or so when we were leaving for home, I went to the bench and found it missing. That was strange indeed because I couldn’t remember anyone coming close to us. I reported a missing jacket to the police but they couldn’t find it anywhere.
“Perhaps some hobo needed it,” my wife consoled me, ” And look at it this way, you win some, you lose some: you got the job and lost the jacket.”
I didn’t buy her logic. There was no connection between the job and the jacket.”No big deal,” I said shrugging my shoulders. In any case, I could hardly see myself wearing it again after it was found, if it ever was found.
But it was found. Now. After forty years. And it looked almost as good as new.
“Where were you all these days? ” I asked the jacket wondering who had worn it and what it was doing back in my life. It looked at it questioningly and was pleased that my size hadn’t changed much…
Should I try it for size?
I picked it up and rolled it into a ball, and dumped it in the trash at the back.
This is my response to Casey’s challenge and also sharing it with other bloggers on Write Tribe ProBlogger Challenge.
