A Lesson Learned the Hard Way

Instead of writing about my most recent walking adventure, today I will write about what happens when I don't walk. Nothing good, I can tell you that!

After work last night, in spite of the fact that it was eighth (or maybe ninth) consecutive day with temperatures in the 90s, I really wanted to go for a walk. But having walked a lot recently, I knew it was important for me to do something different for exercise, so I set out for home planning to ride about 18 miles or so on the exercise bike. I got home, changed my clothes, and I was all ready to go. And then I remembered that I needed to get my passport out of my filing cabinet, because it expires soon, and I wanted to mail it in for renewal.

BIG MISTAKE! I went to my filing cabinet and found the "Passport" folder. But there was no passport inside. What? How could this be?!?! I'm usually pretty diligent (some might say militant!) about things like this. Surely, it must be in the folder. I turned the folder upside down and shook it, as if this could make the passport magically appear out of thin air. Which, of course, it didn't. I looked back in the file drawer to see if perhaps that little blue book had jumped from the "Passport" folder back to the "Prudential Account" folder or up to the "Medical Records" folder. No luck. I went through each and every folder, all the way from "AT&T Universal Card Statements [Previous 12 months]" to "Will [Mom and Dad]." No dice.

At this point, a sinking feeling fell over me. I have two large plastic filing boxes, complete with hanging folders, which I use for older financial documents. Maybe I'd put my passport in there by mistake when I was packing for my move last summer? Okay, Diana, you're probably thinking, no biggie. Just go through those two boxes and find the passport.

But that, my friends, is where you'd be wrong. This would be no easy task. Off of the balcony, I have a wonderfully huge storage closet. I use it for keeping luggage, empty boxes, off-season clothing, grad school notebooks, sleeping bags, and a number of other things. Maybe even my passport?

So, I went out to the balcony in the 95-degree heat, and I opened the storage closet. Wouldn't you know it? Those plastic storage boxes were nowhere in sight, and I had a vague recollection that they had been the first and second things I'd put into the closet when I moved last summer. (Which begs the question: If I haven't needed anything in those boxes since last summer, how important can the information in them actually be?) Quickly, it became clear to me that to find my passport, I'd have to take EVERYTHING out of the closet to get to the back of it. I took a deep breath, squared my shoulders, and began the unpacking of this closet. I have A LOT of stuff.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I also have two paint cans in there. About halfway through this emptying the closet extravaganza, something (me? a box? an impish spirit?) knocked over one of the paint cans, and as it fell, it hit the rather substantial door jamb in such a way that the lid came right off of the can. I had my back turned at this point, so I didn't actually see this happen. The next thing I knew, I felt something sort of cold and thick oozing over my feet.

At this point, I felt as if time began moving in slow motion. I reached for the can of paint, but I couldn't move quickly enough, and by this point, the damage was done. The entire can (which was about 90% full) quickly spilled in an approximately 6-foot circle all over one end of the balcony and all over my feet. I am not one to usually utter expletives, but you better believe that a few came out of my mouth as I wished that Dad was there to help me figure out what to do!

Then, time sped up, as I literally leapt from where I was and ran back inside to get something (what, I wasn't sure) to start cleaning up this disastrous mess. Oh, but wait, I had paint all over my feet, which was now all over the carpet in my bedroom. More expletives. Luckily, the paint was tan, as is the carpet. Unluckily, they were not the same shades of tan, and things were very messy.

I decided that the carpet had to take priority over the balcony. But I couldn't really walk to the kitchen to get cleaning supplies. So, I got down on my hands and knees and crawled out to the kitchen. I am not kidding. I then cleaned the carpet as well as I could, and then I went to wash my feet in the bathtub. In retrospect, this seems rather silly, as I was about to go back out onto the paint-covered balcony.

Anyway, after my feet were clean and relatively paint-free, I grabbed a roll of paper towels and a big garbage bag to put them in once they were dirty, and I set out for the balcony again. I started to wipe up the paint. What was I thinking? After I went through about 20 paper towels in less than three minutes, I realized that there was no way this was going to work. I went back inside (crawling again, as my feet were once again covered in paint) and got a Tupperware container, a soup ladle, and another trash bag. And I even had a plan for how I would use this random assortment of things from the kitchen. (Hey, I wasn't a Girl Scout for nothing. Necessity is the mother of invention. Or something.)

I crawled back out to the balcony again, and I put down the trash bag so I could sit on it as I began scooping up the paint with the soup ladle and dumping it into the Tupperware. (Ralph Lauren Cottonwood soup, anyone?) This process continued for about 10 minutes or so, and then I decided that I'd gotten the paint cleaned up as well as I could for the time being. I laid two flattened cardboard boxes over the paint spill, and I went back to the business of emptying the storage closet.

About 15 minutes later (and more than an hour after this stupidly trying exercise began), I found those two plastic file boxes, way at the back corner of the closet. You guessed it.

The passport was nowhere to be found. I didn't know whether to scream or cry or what, so I just started repacking the closet. By this point, it was almost dark outside, and I was sweating even more than I do when I walk. I decided that I should call Mom and Dad and ask them to send me my birth certificate so that I could apply for a new passport. But Mom and Dad are in Peru right now, and they won't be back until next month, and I need my passport sooner rather than later. I felt somewhat at a loss. Okay, not somewhat. Let's be honest here: completely at a loss.

Finally, at about 9:00 or so, the closet was repacked, and aside from a big circle of paint on the floor of the balcony and the lack of a passport, everything was mostly back to normal. I never did make it to the gym. At 6:45 this morning, I was back out in the balcony with a spatula in one hand and a trash bag in the other. I scraped off the paint that had dried over night and threw it away. I'm not sure how I'll get the rest of it up from the floor.

Anyway, I learned my lesson the hard way. It's much better for me to walk in the evenings. It keeps me out of trouble.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, I did find my passport. After the debacle on the balcony, I decided to look one more time in the file drawer by my desk. Instead of going through each folder, I pushed them apart. There, at the very bottom of the drawer was that elusive little blue book. Wow. What an evening.