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I drove to the supermarket today. On the way I stopped off near the chemist to pick up my prescription. I found out that the chemist is closed on Saturday afternoon. Makes sense. You wouldn't want to be open fully on the day most people aren't at work.
When I arrived at the supermarket I looked in the usual places for my car key, but I couldn't find it. In the old days your key would have been in the ignition, but now keys just have to be in the car for the car to work. I emptied all my pockets, looked under the car seats, but no dice. And more relevantly no key.
I started to wonder whether it was possible that I had dropped the key as I got into the car at the chemist and that it had been underneath the car, thus allowing me to turn the car on and drive away. I considered driving back to the chemist to have a look. Or maybe I'd just have to go home and get the spare key and then come back
Then I realised that I wouldn't be able to drive the car if I didn't have the key, which made me realise that I could check whether the key was still with me by trying to drive away.
The car was still working and no notice came up saying there was no key, so it had to be somewhere in the car. But where? I'd checked everywhere.
Had my key just become invisible? That was the most likely explanation. None of this could be anything to do with me getting older that's for sure.
The only place I hadn't checked was the bags for life on the seat next to me. Surely I hadn't accidentally put the key in there.
I had for some reason, managed to put the key in there, maybe intending to just toss it on to the seat. But managing instead to toss it into a bag.
That's ten minutes of my life that I am not getting back. Though that is true of every ten minutes of my life so far. Now I've written about it and that's another 30 minutes of my life I am not getting back. And it's probably taken you five minutes to read about it and you're not getting that time back either. Who is it who keeps getting portions of time back?
I think we should say this after everything we do. After winning the FA Cup final players should say to the person giving them the medals, "Well that's 90 minutes plus injury time that I'm not getting back."
After getting a first class honours degree, say to the person presenting your diploma "That's three years I am not getting back."
After making love with your partner say "Well that's two and a half minutes I am not getting back."
If you accidentally travel forward in time to the Planet of the Apes "That's two thousand years I am not getting back."
Lying on your death bed say to your family "That's 95 years I am not getting back."
That might actually be quite a good epitaph for your gravestone. "That's x years I am not getting back," where x is equal to the time you were alive.
You don't get any of it back guys. Sometimes you have to waste ten minutes looking for a key that you've for some reason put in a shopping bag. Would I have done anything more productive with that time if I'd found the key straight away? Does any of it matter in the grand scheme of things?
Why are you still reading this? The clock is ticking. Why am I still writing? What's the point in anything?
