Oh, good grief

So I wander down into town today with a few things to do. The first is just get off the mountain for a bit, but along the way there's a few grocery items to pick up, a paycheck to deposit, some library books to return, and so on.

Note those last two.

I put the check and library books in my bag and ride into town. The library is my first stop. Books are returned, Newsweek is paged through, a John LeCarre novel is picked up. At this point I'm very hungry, so I go and grab some food and bask in the touristy sunlight for a bit. Then past the bank on my way to the grocery store.

No check in my bag.

Okay. I stop and think. Am I sure that I grabbed it off my desk this morning? Positive. I distinctly remember picking it up, as my keys were on top of it. I put my library books in my bag, put the check in my bag, grabbed my bike helmet...

...library books, check.

You know that thing that's more a physical sensation than an emotional reaction? Where it's like all your internal organs try to shrink up into the tiniest possible package as if hiding from some ominous hunter? The feeling that can best be summed up as "Oh shit, I think I just did something really monumentally stupid"?

Yep, that one.

I race back down the street to the library, and explain to the librarian at the circ desk that I returned two books about an hour or so ago and think I maybe left something kind of extremely important in one of them, like my paycheck. She was very nice, helped me find the books (still on the shelving cart, thankfully). There tucked just inside the cover of one of them was my check. Crisis averted, and were it not for the overwhelming sense of relief I would have been deeply embarrassed.

The check is now safely within the belly of an ATM, a much more suitable home for it. And I had impeccable timing coming back from the grocery store to catch the bus back up the mountain; clouds rolled in as we drove up and thunder started as soon as I got into my room. (note: thunder does not necessarily mean it's actually going to rain. This is Santa Fe, after all.)