My couch is at it again

So I was sitting here on my couch working on my blog when my glasses slipped off the arm rest of the couch (sometimes I take them off to work on the computer) and down between the arm and the cushion.

Growl.

I reach down to retrieve them, brought them up - and one of the lenses was missing. Baffled, I dug out a flashlight to see what had happened...because they hadn't fallen hard at all.

Well.

The flashlight showed that the frames I had retrieved were not the glassses that had just fallen down there - but an older pair whose absence I had noticed a week or more ago: "Where did those things go?"

I'm sure I was reading something on my laptop some time back, took them off like I often do and simply forgot about them when I was done with the computer.

Me? Forget my glasses? Sure, it's been done before. Sometimes I have to remind myself to put them on before I head out the door to work, because my eyesight without my glasses isn't all that bad. I need them for distance viewing, but not most day-to-day tasks reasonably close at hand.

Fortunately, the loose lens was down on the floor just beneath the frames to which it belonged. The frames aren't bent and the lens isn't scratched, so it should be simple enough for my optometrist just down the street to fix them.

Thankfully, the glasses that did just slip down between the cushion and the arm rest were within easy reach, and they're fine.

But probably the most amazing aspect of this journey to the depths of my couch came next. Just out of curiosity, I shined my flashlight elsewhere below where the seat cushion rests --- and spotted a weathered wallet.

I expected it to be empty. It wasn't. There was a driver's license that was valid until 1997. Bank receipts from a June day in 1994. A couple of credit cards issued by a bank that no longer exists....and now long expired. A Sam's card. A Wichita Eagle employee ID card.

Even cash...which I think is still valid currency, in spite of how dusty the ol' George Washingtons are.

I had to reflect on what happened to allow a wallet to slip unnoticed between the cushions. The dates on the receipts and notes written on the back of a card provided the clues. I had just returned from 2 weeks in Europe - a pilgrimage that took us from Rome to Assisi, Florence, Salzburg, Munich and Venice.

Marvelous trip....but I'll share memories from it another time.

I left the wallet at home so I wouldn't lose it overseas, instead tucking my passport, a credit card and driver's license into a travel belt that I could slip inside the shirt and waistband of my pants or shorts. When I returned home, I bought a new wallet and soon transferred everything.....well, clearly not EVERYthing, as I discovered today.

Remarkable.