I had a mental meltdown

I just had a minor mental meltdown when I tried to write the word ‘forgived’ in a story.  It took some serious cogitation to figure out what was wrong with it.  And the experience reminded me of a story I wanted to tell you guys about a major mental meltdown I had earlier this year.

So I wrote that post a while back about my two favorite books, and I mentioned I have two copies of Catch-22 – my lovely mostly-still-pristine new one and my practically-rabid tattered old one.  So here’s the mental meltdown, ready?

While constructing the post, I had an inspiration to quote the quote that I quoted to you in that post.  So I went and grabbed the new book off the shelf and found that I had actually bookmarked the quote with an overlarge envelope a few months earlier.  Score.  So I quoted it and put the new book back on the shelf.

Then I got another inspiration.  I thought to myself, Surely everyone will want to see a picture of my books!  I’ll take pictures of them!

So I grabbed the old book off the shelf and put it down excitedly next to the camera in preparation.  And then I went back to the bookshelf for the new one.

And I couldn’t find it.

I wasn’t much bothered by that yet.  I rarely put things where I think I put them, and I was pretty sure I’d probably seen it recently, so I was sure to find it soon.  I scanned the rest of the bookshelf and found nothing.  I looked at my other bookshelf.  Nothing.  I checked husband’s bookshelves, and the living room, and even the bathroom, and still NOTHING.  I couldn’t remember where the hell I’d last seen it, that was the problem.  A million possibilities began crowding my head the longer I tried to reason my way through this minor calamity.

I’m not going to lie, I kind of started freaking out.  That was my almost-pristine copy.  I liked that copy.  I had loaned it out recently and I was pretty sure I got it back because I only knew it was only almost pristine after I loaned it out and got it back and saw that it was no longer pristine.  So I was pretty darn sure I had it somewhere in the house.  But maybe I was wrong.  Maybe I loaned it out again to someone else?  Maybe my loanee still had it?  Maybe I only went over to loanee’s house and saw that it was no-longer-pristine and didn’t take it back?  Maybe it was still at work since I did bring it there two years ago?  I started to convince myself with perfectly reasonable arguments of solid crystalline logic that it probably wasn’t in the house after all.

But I wanted the book NOW.  My picture was going to be ruined if I didn’t have that stupid book!  It had to be here, in my house, it had to.  I rechecked everything.  I went back three times to the shelf I was sure it had to be on because I’d recently reorganized all my books and Catch-22 had to be on the shelf of Favorites, right under the Religious Works / Literary Classics shelf and above the Math / Art History Textbooks shelf (yes, this system is fully logical).

I couldn’t find it.  Anywhere.  I searched for ages.

Finally, I claimed pathetic defeat and went in to where the husband was working and asked with a pitifully overwrought pleading meek little voice for him to pretty please come and solve all my worldly woes for me by just checking one more time with fresh eyes for my book.

He walked in, glanced at my bookshelf (he doesn’t even know my organizing system), and without even so much as a dramatic pause he reached in and grabbed the book off the Favorites shelf.  Right where I’d put it back not half an hour before.  It still had the stupid bookmark in it, even.