Dear Diary,
I saw a lost hat on the subway yesterday.
It looked very lonely, like a lost child, despondent on the plastic orange subway seats.
I know… it’s just a cap – the owner must have many caps just like it, but if you were like me and lost a cap on the train and it happens to be your favorite one, you’d be very sad.
Reminds me of when I had left my favorite black army cap on the train at the beginning of a trip, back in Japan. That moment when we stepped off and you realized that you were distracted and you left your cap on the seat, and the train starts pulling out. You chase after it, but it’s too late, the train’s already picked up speed and is out of sight.
So you desperately try to ask the station master to contact the next station to let them know that you’ve lost something valuable. He’s very kind and calls ahead – luck has it that the next stop happened to be the last stop before the train was going to be pulled into storage.
My husband and I rush to get on the next train and rush to the train where we suspect I had left my cap. Of course when you’re in a hurry, everything is just that much harder (Murphy’s Law). The train is parked on the other side of the station so we have to run up the stairs and down to get to it.
Hubby dashes in to go looking for the cap, from one car to another but… sadly it’s not there.
My heart’s broken because it was a very cool cap.
Something that you can’t easily buy off the streets.
It’s a cap that has memories and you feel like you’ve just left your pet or child behind.
“God help me if I had a child or a pet – I’d likely be THAT PARENT who would accidentally forget and leave them behind!” I thought, as I hung my head in disappointment and pain.
I’ve had near misses and also lost a hat/scarf combo since then, but that one incident stays in my memory well after. Well… partly because my hubby won’t let me forget how he had heroically ran through the train cars, looking for a black cap, LOL.
I also think about the Ikea Milk Creamer commercial that we both laugh about still:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2FTrEToODs
Laugh as we may, I still hold my ground that of all things I could have left behind, it always happens to be one of my favorite cap, scarf or gloves.
Nowadays as I sit there in route and I take my cap off, I make it a point to put it into my bag, because I don’t trust myself to remember and it’s too easy for it to slip off my bag or coat while getting off.
Some things just can’t be easily replaced – even at IKEA.
Toodles,
Little (I still have my cap) Reiko and the (enough with the cold) Turkey
Little Reiko's Diary 