I had planned to pack the weekend before. But then at the last minute went to Reno. Each night during the week I arrived home, intending to gather my things, intending to prepare for my upcoming trip to Argentina. And each night other activities took priority: work events, softball, going away parties. On Thursday morning I resolved to simply stay up all night to pack and do all the things I hadn’t had time to do during the week.

At 1 am I began. Snowboard boots, itinerary, cash, camera, batteries, hiking clothes, going out clothes, all in various piles on my living room floor. Passport. Can’t forget my passport. I went to my top right hand drawer of my desk – that drawer that houses a random assortment of items: stamps, return address labels, unclaimed lottery tickets, unused foreign currency, magic markers. And normally, my passport. But alas, no passport now.

I had a vague memory of the last time I used my passport and thinking to myself, “This is such a random spot for my passport; I really should keep it somewhere more logical.” I searched. It wasn’t in any of my desk drawers. Nor in my nightstand. Or in my lingerie drawer. Or in the kitchen. Or in any formerly used pieces of luggage. Where, oh where, would be a logical place for me to put it? I glanced at the clock. 3:30 am. I still had a few hours; I wasn’t getting picked up until 8:00 am. I repeated my search, looking in the exact same places – where else would I have put it? The second search revealed no more than the first. I began taking books off the bookshelves. Maybe I had hidden it in a travel book. Nope. Mild panic was setting in. No passport, no trip to Argentina. Had I filed it? My filing cabinet was just about the only place I had not searched. I furiously began pulling out files, flipping through each folder, splaying contents here and there. Halfway through my search, I found it. Filed under “I”, apparently for “ID.” I’m going to Argentina.