. . . on losing it
I’M ON A TRAIN coming back from Belfast. Sitting opposite me is a teenager with a huge rucksack. The rucksack is resting beside him occupying one whole seat, as though this giant bag is his not very talkative travelling companion. I half expect the teenager to start playing cards with the rucksack or talking about football with the rucksack. Instead, he just pats the pockets of the bag occasionally as though to reassure himself that it is still there.
From the far end of the carriage I hear the ticket inspector. “Tickets please,” he shouts. It’s a friendly reminder for the benefit of all us inept travellers that now is the moment to look for our tickets on the floor or fish them out of our handbags or our pockets. This inept traveller has already mislaid four items since she left Dublin 36 hours ago. But no more. This time I’ve left the ticket on the table in front of me. Speedily locating it will mean the end of this, even for me, epic losing streak.
The inspector advances. I look down to grab the ticket but it isn’t there. It’s not on the floor either. It’s not in my handbag or in any of my pockets. The last 36 hours of losing things flashes before me as I figure out what I am going to say to the man when he requests a look at my ticket.
Lost Property #1:The train has just rolled out of Connolly Station in Dublin when I decide to get organised by placing my ticket on the table in front of me so that I don't have to do my usual ticket-locating-shuffle.
I can’t find the ticket. Even though I just showed it to the guy at the gate. It’s gone. Conveniently, the man who comes to check my ticket is the same guy I just showed it to. He knows I had a ticket but that I am one of those eejits who habitually loses them. He searches up and down the carriage for me. He says that somebody will probably hand it in at Belfast Central. I know it’s gone, though. I know I will have to buy a new one on my way back. This is my third trip to Belfast this year and my third time to lose my ticket on the train. At least, I think to myself, I am consistent.
Lost Item #2:I am in Belfast to write a story about the Belfast MAC (Metropolitan Arts Centre) which, by-the-by, is brilliant, a must-see for culture vultures. I am also here to deliver an after-dinner speech at a gala dinner in City Hall. I deliver such lines as, "I've heard the A&E department in Great Victoria Hospital has been suffering from chronic overcrowding due to a severe outbreak of Titanicitis." (Try the beef, I'm here all week.)
Afterwards, the organisers give me a suitably modest cheque for my efforts. It will come in handy if only to pay for my lost ticket and any future lost-property expenses. I leave my hotel the next morning. Later, despite searching every bag and pocket, I can’t find the cheque. I retrace my steps to the hotel where the manager agrees to let me search through the rubbish. We find the rubbish bag from my room, I know it’s mine because it’s got my ripped up after-dinner speech inside. But no cheque. Just an unwelcome insight into the kind of stuff people put in hotel bedroom bins.
Lost Item #3:If I had a euro for every phone charger I've ever lost it would just about cover the cost of the lost cheque. I don't know where I left the charger. I just know that my chances of tracking down the cheque are severely diminished by the fact that my battery is almost run down. I go back to the hotel again. No joy. I do my glass half-full act: I have another charger at home and it will do me good to be without the phone for a whole train journey. Also, I've a book to finish for work so I'll be able to do that on the train without any digital distractions.
Lost Item #4:That book I have to finish for work? When I get to the train station I realise I've left it behind. So here I am, on the train with a dead phone and nothing to read. It's no wonder my mind starts wandering, it's no wonder I find myself imbuing the teenager's rucksack with human qualities. In a pattern that's beginning to worry me, I realise I'm losing it.
And now the inspector is nearly here. And as if the teenager should care, I start telling him about the first lost train ticket and the lost cheque and the missing charger and the left-behind book. And I tell him how now I’ve gone and Lost Item #5: the replacement train ticket. He listens in that disinterested way of the teenage boy and then looking into his wallet says: “I’ve got two tickets in my wallet. I must have picked yours off the table by mistake.”
I would kiss him except he’s a bit too young and his rucksack might feel left out.
In other news . . .
As if you needed another reason to visit the hidden gem that is the Cobalt Cafe on North Great George's Street in Dublin 1, Meath-based artist David Muyllaert has a new exhibition of his brilliant papercut illustrations showing there until May 6th