Bed, Bath, & Bewildered

Funny the way things snowball from maybe to imperative. Yesterday, I reached a certain point of conviction that it was time for a medical i.d. bracelet of some sort for Jeff. Today, I lost him in Bed, Bath & Beyond.

I was keeping him pretty close as we waited in line at the checkout to pay for two tablecloths. He tends to position himself awkwardly otherwise--either squarely in the middle of an aisle, such that no one can pass, or he confuses other shoppers who can’t quite tell if he’s in line or not. So, I had him with me until I turned my attention to the credit card box through which I’d just swiped my card. They’re all different, you know. Did this one have a screen that I’d need to pay attention to, or sign on, or would I be signing the paper slip? The slip, as it turned out, but by the time I gathered my tablecloths and receipt, Jeff had given me the slip.

Here is what must have happened: Somewhere in the two minutes when my attention was diverted, another woman with light hair must have come into his visual field. At which point he fixated on the wrong back of a head, and followed it out of the store.

Heaven knows whether the decoy Emily ever even noticed the guy trailing her at 10 paces, out the door, down the stairs, across the street. As Becca later observed--thank goodness he didn’t try to get in her car. I cannot say what happened to her, or even vouch for more than her probable existence, but after I’d made 3 circuits of the check-out zone and entryway, and 1 circuit of the entire store, I stepped outside to scope the surroundings. I was not feeling as calm and collected as I may seem relating the tale in written format.

This particular B,B&B is located one flight up from street level. I knew Jeff could have gone across the pedestrian bridge and into the parking garage, or down the stairs and who knows where from there? To my great relief, when I looked out over the street, from above, I spotted him standing patiently, with a slightly bewildered expression, at the street level entrance to the parking garage across the street below.

Down the stairs I skedaddled. “Where did you go?” I asked. He looked perplexed. What a question. “I didn’t go anywhere,” he said “I’ve been right here the whole time. You disappeared.” (I can only assume “you,” in this case, meant the decoy, who presumably escaped without ever becoming alarmed.) For a moment I protested that he’d disappeared as I was at the register...but this clearly bore zero resemblance to his reality, and I quickly dropped it. “I guess you walked into a wormhole,” I said.

In 10 minutes of lost-person, you can do a lot of thinking about how limited his resources are: He cannot call me because he does not remember my cell phone #, does not have a phone, does not know how to use one. He will not seek help, because he does not understand himself to be impaired. He is too far from home to walk back, and not in the neighborhood where 25% of the people know him by sight. No one will offer him help, because he looks relatively normal. But he does retain one trick, which he told me about at lunch, later. “This thing about being lost,” he said. “Ever since I was a kid, in boy scouts, it’s been hammered into me that if you’re lost, stay put and let someone find you.” So that’s what he did.

I am grateful he retains that tool. Now I must find something else to add to my own toolbox.