Letting off steam

As I read the instructions on the chamomile ‘aroma therapy’ shampoo bottle to make sure I’ve gotten it right (… do I rinse and repeat or is one wash sufficient?) the bathroom door swings open and a draft of cold air wraps a death grip around my cocoon of comforting steam.

A tentative voice cuts though the fog. … “Have you seen … ?”

Immediately, a new kind of steam swirls around me replacing the quickly receding mist from the spigot.

Before I even know what it is that I should be looking for among the tub toys, empty soap bottles and … oh, right, the whisk I use to make bubbles for ittybit’s bath … scattered haphazardly on the shower floor, I have lost patience as if it were that last sliver of soap through my fingers.

There are no keys, shoes (work boots or sneakers), wallets, pens, tools or utensils (except for that whisk) in the general vicinity of my shower. There are no cell phones, belts, black socks or that favorite shirt swimming among the suds that I can see.

Why is it, I wonder, that I am the keeper of the whereabouts of items big and small, which, for all intents and purposes, I might not even know what purpose they serve in the first place?

I am picturing the looming question and the steam is reaching my ears:

“Have you seen my collapsible flugal binder with the non-conducting elastic grip? I bought it yesterday, but now I don’t know where I put it.”

I don’t know, perhaps it’s with the expandable ra-mastan with the protective cover that came in the mail last week, I silently respond to myself.

Shallow breath … then explosion:

“Listen, I don’t know where your soccer clothes are, check the laundry. The mail is in the basket and your car keys are hanging on the hook /where they always are/! If you’re looking for your Leatherman: I think he left the building with Sarah Lee, but you might want to look UNDER that three-foot pile of flotsam and jetsam that’s been accumulating on the kitchen counter just to be sure.”

One would think I would be a little more sympathetic.

After all, I am the same person who loses my wallet at the drop of a hat and can never find my keys. The difference, of course, is that in most of those instances I am able to mentally retrace my steps and come up with a probable location in fewer than five degrees of separation.

Even when I think it’s a lost cause, such as the time I dropped my wallet in the Bowery and discovered it was missing on the train ride home, a few days later I found the wallet had miraculously appeared in my mailbox — credit cards, license and all (minus a four-dollar finder’s fee).

But I can’t think about any of that now, with suds stinging my eyes. I turn my attention back to the question feverishly answered but not yet asked.

“… Uh … I was just looking for the whisk. I was gonna make waffles. … Never mind, don’t worry about it. I’ll just use a fork.”