Watching the Months Fly By

As soon as I heard the sickening thud and accompanying flapflapflap on the side of my car, while I was going 45 down a busy thoroughfare, I knew my day had just gone to hell.

I quickly looked into my rearview mirror at the road growing ever distant behind me. And saw the carnage. Then I looked over at my passenger seat. My empty passenger seat, void of the large, overstuffed, leather day planner that was supposed to be laying there.

I had placed the planner on top of my car while I was unlocking it and removing my jacket, and somehow forgot to pick it back up. It managed to stay atop my roof through the parking lot, through the turn into oncoming traffic. But when I accelerated, it went flying.

I'm deducing that when it hit the ground, the three-ring binder popped open, because every single page in that book went fluttering into the 15-mph wind gusts. My Things-to-do lists, my calendar pages, my address pages, my notes, my folders, my Kirkwood Community College continuing ed catalog.

I pulled over to the side of the road and got out, not quite sure where to begin. I dodged cars and trucks to retrieve the planner itself, which now bore some scuffs and what looks like a tire tread mark. Meanwhile, the wind brushed most of the loose papers from the road and embedded them in the grassy median.

I almost left at that point, figuring that running after the stray sheets wasn't worth the effort, but I was approached by two women who happened to work at my company. They said they had tried to get my attention as I left to warn me of my forgotten planner. They chalked up my forgetfulness to "life these days...too much stress for everyone, too much to think about." Nice of them not to assume I'm just losing my mind.

The two of them helped me gather all the pages we could find, then I said thanks and they went back to their lunch break.

I took inventory of my planner parts last night and discovered that I'm missing October, November, part of December and much of next Spring.

But I gained something through the experience. I gained the knowledge that two really nice ladies gave up part of their lunch hour to run through traffic trying to help me salvage my neatly organized life which had careened off my car and exploded into flapping bits of recyclables. Funny how the papers really weren't that important. Knowing that two strangers cared enough to help meant much more.