I pulled out of the circular �elevator� and reached for it. It was not there. I had to have had it earlier. After all, I got in. I pulled up just short of the booth and placed the car in park. I looked in the net part of my purse where it was supposed to be. Nothing. I looked in the main portion of the purse. Nothing. I checked my pockets. Nothing.

The attendant clearly had an idea what was coming. When I came down the drive, he was sitting on a lawn chair across the lane by the sidewalk, just inside the building to avoid the (endless) rain. As I looked up from rifling through nooks and crannies, he was in the booth. I panicked---or at least I almost panicked. Surely they would let me out. I just wondered what it would cost.

Just in case you wondered, I then said all the things to myself that I have been known to say to kids who lose things. I don�t think I am particularly abusive but I don�t think I�m exactly nice about it and I wasn�t nice to me. I did couple it with a plan: if I could just get out of the garage, I would actually clean the inside of the car as I searched. If I could not find it, I would��well, I would look to see where I filed the information and call and get a new one.

Where was that parking card? Where was it?

The guy at the booth was nice but not too nice. �Fill this out,� he told me. Under reason that I could not produce my car I wrote, �It has to be somewhere because I used it this morning. (Lost? I�ll look.)� He took it and did not even charge me. I drove home, irritated with myself.

Looking under car seats is no fun under the best of circumstances. I am past the days when I could tell the customs officer on the Canadian side that he could keep any partially chewed Fruit Loops he found---but just barely. I found mostly paper but I did find an old peanut M& M.

I looked all through my purse. I looked all through my briefcase. Nothing. I looked in the crevices of the passenger side seat. Nothing. I ventured out in the rain, crouched down, and looked under the passenger side seat. Two old playbills, several waded up pieces of paper, one water bottle covered in dust, a map, a few unrecognizable items but�.nothing. I looked on the driver�s seat and under it. Still, nothing.

And then I spotted it between the seats and next to the hump. It was white. It had a black stripe. Could it be? Could it really be?

As Robert Frost would say, �For once, then, something.�

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