Identity Crisis

Lord Kissington’s parents are selling his boyhood home and moving to the wilds to live out their golden years. This has meant the frequent arrival of mysterious boxes at our apartment, and a lot of whining on part along the lines of “but do you really need these comic books/videogames/junior high yearbooks/Encyclopedia Brown books, etc.?” One of the boxes contained his birth certificate, and since we’ll need that to get the marriage license eventually, I suggested that he put it in a safe place, i.e., where I keep my birth certificate and Social Security card. I whip out the ancient expandable file folder that contains these treasures and discover that they are not there. Huh? I can’t remember the last time I had to use them for anything, and I don’t know why I would have moved them from the "safe" place I’ve kept them for the last 8 years or so. I spend the next two hours tearing the apartment to pieces looking for them, in the throes of an existential crisis. Do I exist without my papers? If the papers have disappeared, will I follow? Has someone stolen my papers and with them my identity? Pretty heavy stuff for a Saturday afternoon. Eventually, I have gone through every file, every box, every pile of paper in the apartment with no results. Finally, I decide to check the linen closet because there are a few random things that got thrown in there when we moved. I find some random grocery receipts, and old GQ with Guy Pearce on the cover (yum), and my documents. What kind of lunatic keeps her very important papers in the linen closet with her secret stash of Guy Pearce pictures? First, I doubt my identity, now I have to doubt my sanity? I really wonder where my mind is these days.