Mike’s Musings: Absent-minded journalist strikes again

Some people call me absent-minded, others call me addle-headed. Me, I just blame it on being left-handed.
Last week, I left my briefcase in a rental car. Its contents were my valuable laptop, scads of paperwork and files and some cash.
Let me explain. I didn’t like the first rental car I picked out- too many miles. But in the process of checking out the car, I threw my briefcase in the backseat. When I went to a second car, which I did like, I forgot my briefcase, that is until I was about 25 miles away from the rental car place. When I realized it wasn’t with me, I did a u-turn praying that no one had rented the car I first looked at.
As luck would have it my briefcase was right where I had left it. Whew, I had dodged a catastrophe.
Like father like son so the saying goes, when we returned the rental car a week later, I received a call as I was boarding my plane. Umm, sir we have a wallet that belongs to a Jordan Wilcox, that was left in your rental car. You can’t be serious I thought, but they were, and my son had to high-tail it back to the rental agency and retrieve his wallet, complete with all credit cards and cash. Again, how lucky can we be?
My forgetfulness is not a recent phenomenon. A few years back I lost my credit card in the parking lot of the same rental agency. A few years before that I left my credit card on a plane while traveling to Florida. The wonderful flight attendants at the airline were kind enough to mail it to me.
A few years before that, I somehow managed to drop a set of keys, including my car keys down a manhole in downtown Hamtramck. At the time I owned the newspaper in that town and hurriedly left my office to reach my car which was parked in a lot across the street.
Unfortunately, my keys fell out of my jacket pocket as I crossed a manhole cover. Down they went. I pulled off the heavy cover and peered down the hole. I couldn’t see much of anything, but I feared there was probably a few inches of settled water and maybe a rat or two.
I retrieved a flashlight from the office and peered again. No live animals but there was an inch or two of water. Now the question became, how do I retrieve the keys?
My son came up with a novel idea. Why not use a magnet? It sounded like it might work, so we went to the hardware store and bought the biggest magnet we could find. It was almost 4 inches in diameter. We hooked it to a piece of string and lowered it into the manhole. And by golly after a few attempts we had the keys.
Apparently I didn’t learn my lesson, because I continue to leave important items behind. Maybe I have too many things on my mind, or I’m too in a hurry to get where I need to be, or I’m just addle-headed.