Saturday night produced two negative surprises and a Sunday scare within a mellow night by- myself, as I had just come back to town from the big city to box-up some more of my belongings. I was cooking another personal gourmet meal while sipping on some sauvignon blanc; an almost homeless pseudo-friend called and asked if he could once-again crash on my futon. My better judgment told me this third in-a-row of my hospitality was a bad idea, but my innate niceness overrode and I acquiesced.
When he arrived several hours later, he was in just an athletic undershirt and already half “in the bag” with what I later spied as a vodka bottle. It wasn’t ten minutes before he was helping himself to stuff in the refrigerator, leaving the freezer door wide-open and when I commented about it in passing, his diminutive self became belligerent to the point that he got in my face as if he wanted to actually fight me.
“Go ahead, touch me!” He said “I’m tired of your condescending comments!” At first it amused me, but seeing his face redden, him step into my path as I tried to walk by him out of the kitchen and not backing up, I quickly know this could escalate, and so I invited him to leave while picking up the phone to dial 911 (which I knew would cause him to split quickly). Thankfully he did and I called the cops off.
With order restored, but a bit ruffled, I ate a sumptuous cod fish with bread crumbs, garlic, butter and parsley saute`, and with the hour approaching midnight, decided to check some emails. The first I opened further spoiled the night, when it was from a newly met manager at the Nashville Hard Rock Café, informing me to my shock, that he was “rescinding” the Vibe Host job offer that he had dangled in front of me for the past three weeks. This news came only seventy-two hours before my mandatory “orientation” day, which I was anticipating with growing excitement because it presented a new horizon with a global entertainment company. “Another ‘renegeger’ in Hootyville”, I thought to myself after I shot back a couple of “WTF??” emails. The dude accused me of being “difficult to communicate with…” What? I’m all over social media, have a website and three telephone numbers, “Hello? Mister ‘please leave a message and I’ll get back to you when I can’!”
Soon it was time, after a nightcap, to end this confused evening with sleep. I always wear a gold neck chain with a golden cheetah medallion pendant that Inna, the woman I often refer to as my “fiancée” (Inna) blessed me with almost two years ago all the way from Ukraine. It is my favorite jewelry, by far and has deep symbolic and significant meaning to me. Sometimes I take it off at “lights out”; sometimes I don’t. By late morning when my mind came back to bother me, I wasn’t sure if I had or hadn’t.
If you live alone, I don’t have to remind you how you can hide things from yourself periodically. My reading glasses are the number one vanisher, melting into the scenery regularly. If you have a routine of favorite places and then you break the pattern of placement, you can become totally lost and disoriented. That is what happened on this Sunday after the weird Saturday night.
I felt naked around my neck; my golden chain gone. I thought I remembered putting it in my little ceramic whatnot cup – nope. I checked all the usual places: my pine jewelry box, an old cigar box, an old metal desktop filing box, a small plastic box previously the home for floppy discs…nothing. In the bathroom on the toilet tank many times; the kitchen, my DJ room (now tossed because of the moving); even the kitchen garbage can! Increasingly agitated and feeling my blood pressure rising, I thought that maybe it fell off outside in the grass while I went out to see if my asshole friend was lurking after I ran him off. Maybe the clasp had become undone and it slipped from around my neck! Naw, my cheetah pendant from Nina has weight! I would have noticed the slippage (I would HOPE!) – no that would be an impossible scenario to find it. I pulled my mattress and box springs, now on the floor since I sold my headboard and bed frame for the move, away from the wall to no avail.
“OMG!” I said to myself, “I can’t lose Cheetah! Inna gave it to me; she’ll kill me for sure if when I meet her again I don’t have it!” If I hadn’t just sold my car, I’d have turned it upside-down rummaging under the seats and in the center console. At least I didn’t have to look there, but even that thought did not comfort or quell my increasing panic, now deep into the late Sunday afternoon. One of my old college buddies called long-distance to check on me. He could tell I was melancholy even though I am always glad to talk to him, as I told him my recent weekend woes. Even as we talked, I re-scanned my bedroom and night table area hoping “golden cheetah” would materialize magically while damning myself for being careless.
After we hung-up our catch-up call, I took a carry-on travel bag that I’ve kept semi-packed for my trip to Inna in Ukraine for about two years now, and put it on the floor at my feet as I sank dejectedly into my bedside easy chair. I thought, “May as well empty this thing out totally, just in-case I’d overlooked something earlier…” As I dumped some folded clothes, underwear and some of the bubble-bag envelopes that Inna sent me gifts in (yes I am very sentimental), my eyes suddenly spied something shiny and gold! Yes, there it was! I was so excited as I quickly kissed it and put it back around my neck, I called my college chum right back to briefly tell him I’d found it and my mood was markedly improved! 
It figured that the night before, as I dejectedly crashed-out to bed, that I had taken Cheetah chain off and logically placed it among the used treasure-bestowing envelopes of my beloved who sent it to me in my black travel bag. I hope you guys understand that for me to lose my cheetah is akin to the regular man losing his “mojo”!
Achilliad's Blog! 