Opinion: Mountains out of molehills

In the past week, try as I may, I have not been able to hang on to what a friend of mine used to call pocket impedimenta.

This happens, for example, when I mistakenly hide car keys in my left pants pocket.

Little losses quickly turn into big ones, especially when the cars themselves disappear.

A few weeks ago, I became determined to get a new computer for the office, and the office manager rounded one up for me.

The problem I now have is finding where the little cords and plugs are supposed to go, and I also have a heck of time finding out what they are supposed to do once I get them plugged into the rest of the computer.

The young men and women who work with me at the newspaper office seem to be able to talk to one another in computer language, a strange dialect that can get your tongue tied unless you have an assistant to help you.

Now, I can understand how unfamiliarity with where a car key might be could make you want to sit in a chair and watch TV with one of the dogs, but the dogs get a very puzzled look when they see me squinting under furniture.

They are good sports about all this secret key-searching. Some of them even try to dig a hole to see whether one of them inadvertently buried the key. But try as they may, the only thing they dig up is the rug itself.

If I could find the key myself, I would be alright with that. It would almost be worth a new rug to be able to get my fingers around the car keys, or the keys to the front door.

One of the people at the office even suggested that I tie the keys on a rope, then put the rope around my neck, then jump.

That might solve more than one problem.