A Final Thought on Chicken-Stuffed Potato Balls

A few weeks ago, as I was getting dinner prepped for the following evening, I noticed I was missing a few of the ingredients. This, of course, is why I try to make it a habit to get dinner prepped the evening before I try to cook it – so I have time to make a run to the grocery store if I need to.

I was missing only a few things, but they were major players in my dish. (Who ever heard of kebabs without onions and peppers?) It wasn’t all that late and I was still dressed, so off I went, purse in hand, to the nearest Publix.

I quickly found the items I was looking for and headed to the cashier. “Four sixty-two,” she said tiredly. I had a five-dollar bill in my wallet, which I began to rummage around in my purse to find. It was a futile effort, though, as my wallet wasn’t in my purse. It was in my gym bag.

With an embarrassed roll of my eyes, I explained to the cashier that I’d need just a few minutes to run and get my money. She was nice enough about it, promising to hold my bag for me until I came back. All the way home, I cursed myself for my stupidity.

Now, perhaps you think I’m being too hard on myself. But would you still think so if you knew that this wasn’t the first time this had happened to me that week? Yes, take a moment to take it in: I tried to buy something without having any money on me (paper, plastic, or otherwise) twice in one week. My only salvation was that it had happened at two different stores, in two different cities. Lucky me.

By the time I drove home, got my wallet, drove back to the store, and then drove home once again, I was exhausted. And I was still embarrassed. In self-destruction mode, I started listing in my head all of the idiotic things I had done over the course of the week. On top of the two instances of the missing wallet, I had let a pot of pasta boil over, missed my exit on my way home from work, and arrived at the gym for a morning workout without a towel with which to dry off after my shower.

Now, I realize none of these things is that big of a deal. They were all just little glitches in my day and easy enough to overcome. But these situations have one glaring thing in common: they don’t happen to people who are paying attention. And the biggest shock of all is that, since I set out on my mission to find the meaning of life, I really thought I was paying attention.

But I suppose I’m not paying attention to the right things. Maybe I’m so absorbed with finding the meaning of life inside a chicken-stuffed potato ball that I don’t realize I’m passing by it on the interstate or leaving it in my gym bag. Then again, maybe I just need to lighten up, laugh it off, and take one more look inside one of those chicken-stuffed potato balls. That is, if I remember to bring my money to the grocery store.