“Oh, flight attendant, do you mind…?”

I lose a lot of things. I’d like to think that it’s not because of carelessness or clutter, but that it’s the result of distraction. When I’m juggling too many thoughts (What am I cooking for dinner? Do I have enough buttermilk for buttermilk pie? What bus am I getting on?), then something’s going to get dropped. Unfortunately I usually drop possessions.

The most mundane thing I’ve ever lost was an umbrella. It was one of those fancy wooden ones that I’ll never be able to afford again, and I left it in a movie theater. Oops. I think forgot to call them back, also, so the cool umbrella, the only umbrella I’ve ever loved, is vanished.

Then there’s the special category of things I’ve left on planes….

I also lost a wool hat from Nepal that had matching gloves. I love matching hat and glove sets. Functional and stylish! This set was a Christmas present from my mom so I loved it extra much. It was a chunky red weave with purple and yellow designs woven into it, and the hat had a great big pom-pom on top. On a flight home to Chicago from Kentucky, the wool hat made a dash for freedom and slipped out of my pocket. Devastating. What good are matchy-match wool gloves with no hat? I called and called and called the airline the airport, security department, check-in desk, janitorial services. That hat was gone. Sadness.

Next I left a book on a plane, again on my way home from Kentucky. This was not just any book though. This was a book about a young professional woman close to my age who quit her day job to become a stripper. Poof! She’s a stripper now. And fortunately for all of us, she wrote the whole thing down. Between stripping gigs of course. What made this book extra special was that it was on loan from the finacee of a relative of the book’s author! What are the odds? “Hey check this out. My fiance’s second cousin wrote a memoir about stripping.” I left it on the plane. Some teenager discovered that book on the next trip and got to read every creative euphemism for stripping known to man. Again I called and called to lost and found, but that book was long gone. Poof!

The most interesting thing I’ve ever left on a plane must have been quite a shock to the last attendant on duty for the evening. My mother cooked a big meal for my last evening in Kentucky, an out-door, Kentucky-style, cook-out, complete with bratwurst, hamburgers, and hotdogs. Now my mom knows how my husband loves to eat, and she knows we don’t grill too often, so she fixed him up a to-go bag. She made him bags of hamburgers and bags of brats and bags of dogs, and then she put it all in a boutique paper shopping bag with handles.

I left it on the plane.

I put the bag of meat under the seat in front of me so it wouldn’t get squished in the overhead bin. Unfortunately, I didn’t strategize this very well, and I put my carry-on backpack down on top of the meat. Ouch! I flew the trip, reading some other book or magazine I’d probably soon lose, and completely forgot my meaty cargo. When the plane landed in Chicago, I stood up, picked up my backpack, and walked off the plane. No meat.

I didn’t realize I had left a bag of meat on an airplane until I got back to our apartment. “Mom sent you a present, but I can’t find it.”

“What is it?”

“A bag of meat from the cook-out.”

“Oh, I love your mom’s bratwurst!”

“Oh God.”

“What is it?”

“I just remembered where the bag of meat is. I left it on the plane!”

Dear flight attendant, who works between Louisville and Chicago, I’m sorry you found a bag of meat under a seat a couple of years ago. I bet it was still warm too. We had just eaten its meaty cousins. I know you had to throw the meat away, but I hope it didn’t cause you too much stress. I hope it just gave you a good story to tell….

“What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever found on a plane?”

“Well one time I was cleaning up, and I found a bag of meat!”