My Report Card

Last night at about 9:30 I went into the garage to put something into recycling and one of my hubcaps was gone.

I stood there gnashing my teeth for a few minutes while my brain reeled off scenarios, first for how it came to be missing, like maybe it was stolen or what stupid thing did I do now?

And then, what sort of giant clusterfark was it going to take to replace it? Searching hubcapsяus.com or a trip to Toyota where a grim-faced employee would explain that the stock hubcap for a 2001 Camry is now a collector’s item and better liquidate your 401k so we can get this process started.

Then I thought, why not just live without it. Who cares?

Except I do. I take good care of my things and every time I went out to my car and saw that it would make me mad.

Then I remembered that when I stopped at the dry cleaners earlier, I had taken that curb pretty hard. Maybe I should hop in the car and drive over there and see if my hubcap was sitting in the grass. I didn’t want to leave it until the next day.

Then I also remembered that driving home from exercise class I had heard a weird scraping noise. I figured it was a branch or something and did not investigate further.

“Bob! You have to help me find my hubcap.”

I found some flashlights. My husband, who was on his way to bed, went and put on his shoes. We walked toward the area where I’d heard the weird noise. Luckily it was on our street.

And there it was in the middle of the street waiting for me.

Finally, something went right.