On The Pocket Pat
I’m a pretty organized guy. I always know where my phone is. I never lose my keys. My glasses go from on my face, to a designated spot in the bathroom when I put on my contacts, back to my face, and then to their designated spot on my bedside table every day. I know it seems like a boring way to live, but I find a certain level of comfort in knowing exactly where all my most important things are. This is even more crucial when I’m out and about in the world.
Nothing, and I mean NOTHING (I don’t actually mean nothing) feels worse than losing one of your daily carries. Losing your wallet is the least debilitating. Obviously losing whatever money you have in your wallet sucks a huge amount, but honestly, I barely ever have cash on me anymore. It’s losing all the plastic that can really ruin your day. Losing your credit/debit cards in 2021 feels a little bit like losing touch with the world. Suddenly you can’t stop at the grocery store on the way home or pick up a burrito for lunch! Thankfully online banking has made it so much easier to get your cards replaced, but don’t even get me started on getting your license replaced… seriously how have we not figured out how to make the DMV less of a hell hole? We have electric cars and crypto currency and billionaires who go (almost) to space for no reason!
Losing your keys is the next step up in nightmare rating. As I’ve said, I’m pretty organized so I’ve never actually lost my keys (simply writing that sentence all but guarantees that I’ll lose my keys in the next week, so if you find them, please comment below), but I can only imagine how insanely inconvenient it would be. Just recently I exited my apartment to take the trash out on a Sunday night, only to find my neighbor passed out drunk on his door step. At first, I panicked because I thought he was dead, but as soon as he started blinking and mumbling about how he lost his keys I could only think about how shitty it is to be locked out of your own living space. I will admit that at one point while staying at my parents’ house, I got drunk enough to convince myself I lost my keys, forcing me to sleep in the back yard, only to find my keys in my other pocket at 5am… not quite my proudest moment, but close!
The last and most annoying, most horrible, most terrible thing to lose is, obviously, the cellphone. Phones have become so integral to our lives that if you have one, you can basically ignore all the problems created in the previous two paragraphs! Lose your cards? Apple pay has your back. Lose your keys? You might have some kind of fancy electric lock you can flip (or like my intoxicated neighbor, you can loudly call someone named “baaaaabe, babe, babeeeeee” and beg them to come unlock your door).
So, if you see me out in the world, frantically patting my pockets, it’s simply to assuage my fears that I’ve lost something more important than my dignity.
So what daily carry are you most afraid of losing?
The pocket pat is a cute phrase and sounds like the name of a dance you would do at a wedding
The wallet is, of course, terrifying, because of all the crap I carry in it. And trust me, Millennial, I carry more stuff in mine than you do in yours, including more actual cash (a dying habit of my generation). The cellphone is a nightmare, as well as hugely embarrassing, because you know when you go to get a replacement, the millennial behind the counter will look at you with a combination of pity and judgment. But what I'm most afraid of misplacing these days is my mind. I walk into a room to get something and completely forget what it was, then have to go back to the room I was in to see if something jogs my brain. Or I leave a room thinking I have picked up my phone and look down to see it's the remote for the TV. Or I'm watching Jeopardy (which I was absolutely brilliant and lightning quick at five years ago) and totally forget who wrote "Of Mice And Men." I knew it was John Steinbeck five minutes ago. I'll know it was Steinbeck five minutes from now. But at this moment it's like I'm standing in front of a file cabinet that has the answer I need and I can't open it. And unlike my wallet or my phone, once I lose my mind there's no DMV or Apple Store I can go to. You'll have to take care of me. Good luck.