I Know It's Here Somewhere...

"This dresser does not reflect my life."

I kept my head ducked down searching through a bottom drawer while Tiffany tore through a drawer above me. We were looking for my swimsuit. Not my bikini. My full-coverage swimsuit that I bought... you know, it's so old I probably didn't buy it. I think my parents bought it for me when I was nursing a knee injury in high school and couldn't run. In a moment of passing bravado, I may have suggested to Tiffany that I could run a triathlon with her despite the fact that I've never combined swimming, biking and running in a single day, let alone consecutively in a race with other people who combine such activities regularly. On the off-chance I follow through on that suggestion, I figure I should swim, and I don't think triathletes swim in bikinis.

Anyway, we had already looked through the gigantic suitcases at the top of our closet where we keep out-of-season clothes (read: any summer-weather clothes since San Francisco doesn't have a summer).

"Maybe it is in the dresser," I said softly as Tiffany stood on her tiptoes on our kitchen stool, straining to shove the suitcases back into the corner of the top shelf.

"What?" she said. "You mean you didn't look in your dresser?"

"Well, I looked," I said. "But maybe not as good as I could have."

"I swear to God, Rebecca, if I get down there and find that swimsuit in the dresser after standing up here on a one-by-one stool..."

She trailed off, but the message was clear.

"You know how I am," I said, offering her my hand as she hopped down.

You know that disorder some people have where they can't recognize things right in front of their face. Agnosia, I think? I have "whatever-I-am-looking-for-agnosia," so that if I am looking for AA batteries in the cluttered drawer where I know batteries should be, I don't see them. And when I complain to Tiffany that I don't see them, she comes to help, and, lo and behold, they are found.

But strangely, instead of sympathy, my particular disorder elicits irritation. Especially because in looking for things, I tend to leave chaos in my path. Hence the dresser drawer Tiffany was pawing through. I'd already pawed through it, so it looked like a tiny tornado had breezed in and out.

Thankfully, no swimsuit.

"No big deal," I said casually, "it probably had a see-through butt by now."

TIffany glared at me.

"Oh, but I would have worn it if we'd found it," I back-pedaled. "I mean, I'm sure no one would have noticed."