The drive south was almost welcomed, seeing as there still weren’t many places this pandemic-resistant girl could plant herself outside of home, sweet home. Thermograms were yearly, non-invasive, worth both the money and time. After assuming all the positions, and a nice chat with thermographer Judy, RN, about whatsoever was true and what wasn’t and how many friends had turned their backs, she reached into the Altoid box to present compensation. No small horror: was her recently replaced credit card truly missing??

Now, how many hours of brain wracking would it take to haul back and retrieve the last time that wretched piece of plastic had escaped her grasp?

With some meuwing and striving, she pinpointed: June 9. The drug store drive through – and, the skinny sack, with its new migraine autoinjector, package insert and, of course, those famous last words of the dispensing teller: “Card’s in the bag.”

(But, hadn’t she needed that package insert last week, only to come up empty?!)

Now, the required call to the bank, for a check of recent transactions. All familiar; all well. She’d be home in an hour, time enough to turn the house upside down.

Rifling through the receipt box for the umpteenth time, she was sure this exercise would be further futility until, two parts determination binding with equal parts go for broke, there it was: the drug store bag. Eagerly, she squeezed the base and popped open its mouth.

What emerged provoked a moment of delight powerful enough to obliterate the Delta variant.

No. It wasn’t the credit card. That, she would find in the kitchen, only moments hence, wrapped in, yep, the clear plastic pouch housing one cumbersome freezer pack used to keep the migraine injector frigid. No. This?

This was her precious – and, three week long lost – Kitty Mask.

The pandemic had created one fashion statement, and this had been it. Her Bonnie-made kitty mask – the favorite, with its silly smiling cartoon cats, bright sunlit liner, and yellow ear beads.

As if propelled, in only seconds she bounded toward the kitchen, honing in on the sack holding the credit card, too.

Ya hadda live in that house. Ya hadda get that everyone coped in their own way, and most never let on how dreary and even despondent life had made them. This was a two-fer. What was lost had been found – twice.

Carry on, little birds. May all your trips south be as bountiful.

Me-ouuw.

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© 7/19/21 Ruth Ann Scanzillo.