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Today's column is perhaps the most important document of the 20th century. I can't find my wallet and my ATM card's in it. I need everyone to please help me look for it. I'm going to ask that we all please rise from our chairs and divide up into teams and collectively retrace my steps.
My ATM card is typically the first and only item I make a point to grab before leaving the house.

I don't even really need my driver's license anymore. Nobody looks at it, nobody uses it as a tool to verify my actual identity. My "signature" might just as well be a random scribble.
Sometimes I get worried that if I go outside unprepared, cops will harass me for not having any ID. They'll use it as an arbitrary excuse to haul me away as a vagrant. I'll be fined and fingerprinted. My whole entire world will come crashing down around me.

That's not paranoid, it's just the stuff you think about when you can't find your wallet!
And technically it's not a “wallet”, it's just my driver's license and ATM card and badges for work next to each other.

Not rubber banded or grouped, but loose and free to slap together & slide around or do whatever they need to do.
I recall precisely the last time I touched it. I wasn't outside, I was in my room. I remember feeling the bendy plastic and staring at the thin magnetic strip. These things are made so cheap, I could practically rub it off with my thumb. Fucking banks. I hate them.
This was a brand new ATM card, too. I had ordered it three weeks ago after the one I'd been using got demagnetized - most likely by the internal magnetics of my work badges.
But it was a Saturday. So that suggests a zero percent chance that I left my ATM card - or anything else - behind at the office.

All my cards typically live on my bed or in yesterday's pants pockets over the weekend until magically they're all in Monday's pants pockets. Pant pockets? Pants pockets. Monday's pants's pockets.

Anyway, I'm screwed. I can retrace my steps if you want but that won't do much good since I first noticed it missing two weeks ago.

Yes, it has taken me a long time to deal with this urgent situation. Don't bug me about it. I thought maybe it was just a "phase" my ATM card was going through but no, it's lost. It's gone.

 

Every time I step outside, it's impossible not to imagine all the horrible, embarrassing things I could do to get myself in trouble.

I could pull my pants down right now and my entire career as an independent content provider would be over.

These people look like they have their shit together, but underneath I'm sure hundreds of dark, horrible family secrets are waiting to burst forth.
I guess I could call mom and ask her for a loan. But then she'll want to have me out to the house for dinner. I'll be there for like three hours. She'll pull out her itemized list of all the modems and monitors she's bought for me in the past, and ask questions about installing AOL and I'll want to leave and I'll have no car and etc & so forth. I keep telling her there's already a resource out there for moms. It's called tech support. But she never laughs. Maybe she's going deaf.
One day, she called me at home. She'd been rummaging through the cardboard box her computer came in. She was holding a fistful of manuals and registration booklets, and she wanted me to describe to her which one I thought might be the System Folder. CHRIST JESUS MOM, LEAVE ME ALONE. No doubt someday she'll have Alzheimer's disease and I'll start getting indecipherable Dr. Seuss-like voicemail. Okay, I have to stop thinking about it right now.
Other things to think about:

- Getting my web page in order. (navigation bars, learning imageready)

- Calling that client lady back (finding her phone number)

- Paying phone bill.

- New shoes

- Nearly out of m-a-r-i-j-u-a-n-a.


HOLY SHIT, look at that guy!

All those presents! How many girlfriends does a person need? I wonder if they're real girlfriends or just escorts he's grown friendly with over the course of his life. I wish I had that situation going on. I could if I applied myself. Although I should save my money, not spend it all.
I'll bet he's got one of those fancy 1960's-style bachelor studio apartments with mirrored wallpaper. I should go interview him with a cheap tape recorder and put cocktail music in the background and make an MP3 to upload and distribu- oh right, my cord thing is broken. Never mind.

*SIGH*

All these PEOPLE taking up valuable chairs. Does everyone have the weekend off? Do they ALL work nine to five, Monday to Friday?

Can't you folks go to the beach? Or HIKING or HANG-GLIDING or some other idiotic extreme sport that gets you killed so I can sit down?

WHY DO THEY ALL HAVE TO DOING WHAT I WANT TO BE DOING??

They just sit there and goof off and drink and do nothing. Where does their money come from? How come it's me who has to fucking stress out all the time and they get to live their lives in relative comfort? WHAT'S UP WITH THAT?
And they're all drinking the same coffee from the same paper cups wrapped in the same cardboard holders.

REAL ORIGINAL, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN.

If only my company would make java jackets. THAT'S how to get our message delivered to people. Real people, with real e-commerce needs.
And where's my coffee?

Don't I get any?

HELLO, AM I ON THIS PLANET TOO?

ARE WE ALL TOTALLY STONED AND IGNORANT TODAY?

One dollar?  Comin' right up.  In the form of my super-duper trusty-rusty handy-dandy ATM CARD. Everyone was all: DUDE - that guy's RAD! Stand back, he's whippin' out the plastic.
But it wasn't in the pocket I thought it was in. I felt three, four times just to make sure. Nor wasn't it not in the pocket I didn't think it was in. It wasn't in either pocket.
No, that's impossible. I quite clearly remember picking it up off the floor. I may be stupid, but I'm not an idiot. Possibly I mis-felt? Did I put it somewhere unusual? My sock? My shirt pocket? It must be somewhere on my person!
All right, what the FUCK???  Did I have it at all when I left the house?  Was I holding it in my hand and I just absent-mindedly dropped it?  How should I know?  Why don't I take better care of my things?   OF ALL THE PRECIOUS THINGS YOU OWN, YOUR ATM CARD IS THE MOST IMPORTANT.  AND NOW IT'S GONE - YOUR ATM CARD IS GONE.
IT'S GONE, AND EVERYONE IS STARING AT ME.
WELPS - I'M OUTTA HERE.

I bolted.

I fled from the scene, I fucking ran.
That's right folks, I'm leaving.

GOODBYE.

ENJOY YOUR WEEKEND.

YOU CAN ALL GO ABOUT YOUR BUSINESS.

HAVE FUN WITH YOUR STUPID LAPTOPS.
Lord God I'm pathetic.

I'm a fraud and a failure.

I have absolutely no future. NOTHING I do works. I can't hold on to ANYTHING.
ALL I WANT IS A NICE GIRL TO COME ALONG AND HOLD MY HAND AND TELL ME EVERTHING'S GOING TO BE OKAY.
What could have possibly brought me to this point? Do any of us have control over our destinies? Are we just pre-programmed to commit one horrible mistake after the next?

HELLO, WORLD!! Look at me go, lopsidedly propelled across the universe courtesy of my own lameness.
It was not a graceful exit, to say the least.
YES, I’M CROSSING THE STREET YOU IDIOT.
For GOD SAKES, I'm trying to catch my breath.

DO YOU WANT TO BE SUED AND GO TO JAIL?
My mind raced!

I mentally visualized myself going backwards in time - through my mind's eye - backwards, backwards - across everything I'd done that entire week.

So many ways my ATM card could have slipped away. So many opportunities for nature to conspire against my peace of mind, my very survival.

So many pointless, trivial activities I've chosen to distract myself with on a daily basis instead of just putting down the bong or the keyboard and getting my life together.
Soon my phone service will get disconnected and I'll be isolated from everything I know and love. I'll have to sit at the computer and figure out something to do which doesn't involve connectivity.

The rent was due yesterday and my landlord slipped a note under my door reminding me of that fact. This plus the electric bill, the water bill, the garbage bill. The toilet paper I don't have, the toothpaste I'm running out of, the towels I haven't taken to the laundry in nine months.

I think I'm dreaming - I think this ludicrous reality I've constructed for myself is little more than a hologram, and all that's required of any of us to secure true happiness and eternal comfort is to locate the big red OFF SWITCH.

But I can't! I can't rest until I've found that gosh darn godforsaken ATM card!!
Eventually, I got gum on my shoe and gave up the search.

Christ, why do people have to chew gum? They stuff ten big huge pink pieces in their mouths at once and then chomp away like a chipmunk, only to splut it out on the sidewalk five minutes later. Disgusting.
Now I'm going to have sticky brown spots all over my clothes. People at work are going to notice I never do laundry.

I'll have to visit the bank and actually talk to someone in order to get a temporary ATM card.
My mind begins to reel with advance annoyance of the interrogation sure to follow.

No, I don't know where it is - No, I don't know what happened to it, etc. etc. SHUT UP. The people at the bank hate my voice on the phone and my face in person.
The only reason I still do business here is because it's the bank mom signed me up with when I was eight years old.

There's too much work involved with getting switched over elsewhere, and doing so would only fuck up my direct deposit.
Every time, they look at me like I'm about to rob the place. Can't they hire nice people? What are all my ATM fees paying for, anyway? They're like little PAPER CUTS. Why can't bank people just do their job?? Which is pretty much whatever I ask them to do??
It's all just so hard to deal with, isn't it?? And when I finally get up to the teller, she's going to ask for my driver's license, WHICH I DON'T HAVE EITHER.
If anyone finds my old ATM card, please don't use it.

The number is:

4217 4932 8504 9420

Expiration: 3/04