departmenting licenses

Today I was watching Bones, organizing my bills and sorting through my (mostly) junk mail. I was congratulating myself on being productive while entertaining myself, when I came upon my car registration renewal paperwork (sadly, not junk). I put it in my "I will deal with this when I am done with the junk mail pile", but as my hand was moving back to the stack in front of me, I realized that I was proverbially dead meat, and my heart started beating a little bit faster.

On Ides of April, aka Tax Day, I went to get my license to drive renewed. The DOL (not labor, but licensing) mailed my license to me. I put it in my Very Important Paper pile (not to be confused with the "I will deal with this when I am done with the junk mail pile" - not only because one involves capitalization for emphasis and the other quotation marks, but also because, erm...not only always goes with but also grammatically, so I had to stick one in).

*cough*

Then Certain Events happened and my mind got scrambled. I knew exactly where it was as of Sunday afternoon, but now I have no recollection of where my new license is. It's not in either stack of papers - quotations or capitalizations. It's not even in junk mail. It's not with the stack of languishing Christian Science Monitors, nor is it in the newly filed non-junk, but bills pile. It's not where it was on Sunday, and it's not in the garbage, it's not the recyclables. It's not in the couch, it's not on the kitchen counter, it's not in the bed, and it's not in the closet.

My mind can't relax because I can see the license clearly in my mind's eye, exactly where it was on Sunday. I moved it to make room for food (I am now cursing the food in retrospect out of immature spite) and I have no idea where I put it.

My temporary license expires soon. I really don't want to go pay the $45 again, and stand in line again, and hold up my car registration to boot. My apartment just isn't that big. Where could it be?!?!

I am entering the department of crazy, all over this silly license business.

And perhaps the saddest thing about this is that the episode of Bones was to introduce (perhaps) a spinoff show, where there's this guy whose name is Walter, who has the talent of being a "finder." Seriously. You name it, he finds it, no matter if it seems impossible. It's due to some weird brain thing he sustained while he was a POW in Iraq. But anyway...I was thinking, if he came up to me right now and asked me what he could find for me, I'd tell him nothing, because I haven't lost anything. And then I realized a few minutes later that I was missing my license and I wanted to say "oh snap" but I didn't, and then I just rolled my eyes (this was pre-panic) and decided to add the copy of my 2009 tax return to the "needs finding" list. Unsurprisingly, I have found neither, and wish I had a Walter.