Scatterbrained

I am SUCH an idiot sometimes.  I've been doing a lot of travel lately, and instead of bringing home souvenirs, apparently I'm LEAVING them.

The trip that started off my latest rash of travel was when I went to the Bay Area to interview for my current position.  I left my coat in my hotel room closet when I checked out, and it was actually my prospective boss who noticed I wasn't wearing it.  They wouldn't look in the room when I called, but later did find it an mail it to me.

In New York, I'm pretty sure I left a pair of jeans at one of the two hotels I stayed in, but by the time I realized I was pretty sure I came home with one pair instead of two, I wasn't sure which of the two hotels I'd left them in, forgot my room number at both hotels, and counted them as a loss.

On a brief trip to the Bay Area again, I left my toothbrush in my room.  If it was a standard toothbrush, no biggie, but it's my electric toothbrush that would cost a hundred dollars or so to replace, so I once again called and they sent it to me.

Now I can't find my sunglasses after returning from Chicago.  I had them when I was driving the rental car, but they're nowhere in any of my luggage, so apparently I left them in the car.  The rental car company uses an online system to track lost and found.  On the list of "found" items, they just show the type of item.  There are a bunch of sunglasses and a few pairs of eyeglasses on there.  I submitted a report of a lost item, which include the ID number of the car, and received an update today that they haven't located them.  They're prescription sunglasses, so they really won't do anyone else any good, unless they happen to have the same type of crappy eyes I do.  However, they're prescription sunglasses, which means I can't just go out and buy another pair.  I do have an eye appointment in a couple weeks, so if they haven't turned up by then, I'll get more, but that's expensive!  And in the meantime, I'm driving around giving myself a headache in the Central Oregon sun (well, smokey haze more often than not, but it's still glary!).

This was much longer ago, but I also lost my driver's license temporarily when I jammed it into my pocket after clearing security on my way to Vegas, and it slid out of my pocket sometime during the flight.  The airline called me, an I had to schlep back to the airport to get it (two cab rides!).  Ask me how much fun it is to pay for a hotel room without ID.  :-(

That incident with the driver's license is why I now fly with my passport as my ID, even on domestic flights.  It may not be the BEST idea, but I have my reasons:

• While it would be expensive to replace my passport, that provides incentive to not lose it!
• I don't travel internationally on the drop of the hat (like some brothers of mine I know!), so if I did lose it, I'd have to fork out the money, sure, but I'd have plenty of time to replace it.
• Losing my driver's license would be more of a hassle in the short term, especially if I lost it on the flight TO a destination and then couldn't rent a car.
• It's physically much larger, and also being more expensive to replace, I make a big point out of putting it away in a secure spot after security (and I have a designated spot in each bag I would potentially use), instead of just slipping it into a random pocket of my clothes or bag.

I've managed two 12-day trips to Asia without losing a single item, but can't seem to make it to the Bay Area without leaving something behind!  I might need to make myself a packing list, not so much for the benefit of packing (though I suck in that department too--left my daily pills behind a couple of trips ago), but so I can check items off as I pack to return HOME.