#1
So yesterday I was connected to my work email account from home, which requires entering a passcode that is displayed on a credit card-sized ID device. I set the card down on top of the book I'm reading (The Fall by Michael Allen Dymmoch - a respectable, though not exceptional, thriller). At the time I placed the card on the slippery surface of the library-jacketed book, I thought that it would be easy for the card to slip off and for me to forget to place it back in my briefcase. That is the last that has been seen of the card. I searched the chair - under, between the cushions, beneath the footstool - my briefcase, my pocketbook (quite an undertaking by itself considering the vast array of stuff it holds), the shorts I was wearing yesterday, and the dishtowels I carried downstairs from the laundry room (in case I had slipped it in that pile by mistake). If it had been a bit smaller I would have checked the cats' litter boxes because they did seem to have a swallowed-the-electronic-canary look about their whiskers. It has simply vanished, joining all those socks and mittens and keys and pens that have slid into another dimension.

#2
Last night when I went to pick up Rebecca at a friend's house, I stopped in front of the house, reached into my pocketbook (groped around is a better description) and pulled out my phone (by the antenna, if the truth be told, an abuse I'm ashamed to admit). My hands were damp from the bottle of delicious sparkling water-like beverage I was drinking (wild cherry, I think) and never did get a good grip on the elusive antenna. The phone sailed through the air, a perfect swan dive, landing at my feet on the carpet. Now, there just *may* have been a tinny clink as the phone was doing its arc - perhaps it slightly grazed some hard surface, although I couldn't swear to that. Anyway, when I picked it up and turned it on, I was greeted with the sight of a wondrous blue and yellow streak spreading across the bottom left corner of the liquid crystal screen. It was rather Rorschach-like in its shape, with fractal-y edges and blobs of color. It appears that the liquid crystals have escaped their bonds and are freely flowing across the entire southwest of the phone - California, Arizona, New Mexico and parts of Texas are all gone. Oregon and Washington succumbed this afternoon and soon everything west of the Mississippi will be devoured as if Stephen King's Langoliers had been miniaturized inside my phone. So, off to the phone store to be charged some ridiculous price to replace the phone (for which I had not bought insurance).

Moral of the story – get up off your ass and go knock on the door rather than calling your daughter on the phone to tell her you’ve arrived.

#3
Now I’m just waiting for the third shoe to drop…