If you've read any of the past works on this page, you can probably piece together the fact that I sometimes let little things bother me far too much. During the most recent of these, I mis-placed a glove of mine, and spent entirely too much time worrying about where it had gone.

The particular incident started one night when I was driving down to the Rec center to shoot some baskets. It had snowed about 5 inches during the course of the day and I wasn't about to make the 3 mile bike ride through piles of slush and snow. Besides that, it was pretty damn cold out.

After changing into some workout clothes, I put on a stocking cap and gloves and headed out to my car. I sat down in the seat, and before I started the car, I took the glove off my right hand to put the key in the ingition and turn it. I'd tried wearing the glove while doing it before, but the small key area combined with the bulky-ness of the glove made it rather difficult.

Instead, I put the glove in my lap, started the car, and made my way to the Rec center in haste, without ever bothering to put the glove back on my right hand. As luck would have it, every spot in the parking lot was taken when I arrived and I ended up playing the circling waiting game hoping that someone would leave.

Luckily for me, it wasn't long before a person pulled out, and I snuck in just ahead of some kid in an SUV. I grabbed my bag of stuff and hopped out of the car, oblivious to the fact that I had placed my glove in my lap earlier. In my attentive-ness to find a parking spot and get inside, I had completely forgotten about it.

After working up a nice sweat, I came back outside to my car and the wind chilled me to the bone. There was nothing I wanted more than to get home and into a nice warm shower and some dry clothes. When I got inside and started putting things away, though, I couldn't find my glove.

Right away, I remembered I had had it with me earlier, and ran outside to see if it had fallen beside my seat. After a thorough looking over, I hadn't found it, and I really didn't feel like starting up my car again and heading out just to look for it or see if someone had turned it in to lost and found. Another blast of wind through my sweat drenched clothes re-affirmed my thought and I went upstairs and hopped into the shower.

After showering, I thought once more about going down and looking, but then I thought about it. They weren't exactly a nice pair of gloves, and while I did use them a lot, I still had about 4 other pairs in the closet that I could use until I went and found it the next evening. Even if I did end up losing it, I figured it wouldn't be a big deal.

The next day came and I didn't have time to make it to the Rec center and by the next day I had completely forgotten that I had lost it. I had pulled out an old set of mittens from the closet and they were doing just fine for me.

Then, as I was unlocking my bike outside the center 6 nights later, I remembered the glove and decided to go down to the parking lot and look for it, just for the hell of it.

I remembered where I had parked, and went right to the spot. Almost all the snow that had fallen on the day that I drove down was melted and there were puddles all over the place. At first I couldn't really see much of anything, but as my eyes adjusted to the not-so-well-lit lot, I spotted something.

My glove was laying in a muddy puddle several inches deep and part of three fingers were sticking through the layer of ice that had frozen over the top of it. I reached over and pulled it up, breaking the ice as I went and trying my hardest not to let it drip all over me. It looked like it had been run over several times and it weighed about 10 times more than normal due to having soaked up so much water.

I then flung it over on a dry space in the lot and stepped on it several times to squeeze some of the water out of it. It was almost completely saturated and while there was no way that I was going to put it on any time soon, I suddenly had the idea that I needed to save it and wear it again one day.

After squishing most of the water out, I coiled it up and stuck it in a water bottle holder on my bike and made the trek home. By the time I got there, it had frozen into place and I once again knocked it out on the ground before deciding to hang it up on the clothesline behind the apartment to dry.

The next morning when I went out to go to work, the glove had an icicle hanging from every one of the fingers. It was still considerably saturated, and I could see gravel and dirt all over it.

After arriving home from work, it had dried almost completely, so I brushed it off one final time and finally took it back inside my apartment, where it now sits with my laundry. It will be washed, and even though it will probably look a lot more beat up than its partner, I will wear it again. And I'll feel good about it knowing I saved it from its watery grave.

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