A missing V.I.P.P.

Next week, between Monday and Wednesday, I have what amounts to a nine-hour series of lectures to give on a topic that is not within my typical lecture orbit. But neither is it an impossible task, since it is on a topic that is not especially difficult for a law prof of any field to speak on. All I need is time. I am a rather meticulous lecturer. I never go into a class without comprehensive lecture notes. I don’t read them while presenting, but anything and everything that I ever say is in some way contained in the sheaf of papers that I bring with me to class. For the hours of teaching that I have before me next week I calculated that I would need 45 pages of single-spaced lecture notes.

Today is Tuesday. I told myself that I absolutely had to begin putting together my 45 page security blanket. But early in the day, I was arrested by a disconserting realization: it struck me that yesterday I left a piece of paper on the kitchen counter. It was a very important piece of paper, folded into an envelope-like enclosure with perforations on all sides. Why do I believe it to be significant? Because it came in the mail this week-end and it had “very important” written all over it. Not literally, but in the presentation. It looked so important that I pulled it out of the stack of mail and placed it on the counter as Something I Must Not Neglect.

Tonight I was attending to paperwork and I could not find this V.I.P.P (very important piece of paper). I looked through the week’s garbage three times, piece by piece, rotten piece of food by rotten piece of food. Nothing. I went through every room in the house, every stack of papers, every drawer of irrelevant trash. Nothing.

I could not stop myself. When I didn’t find it in the first round, I did a more thorough second round. Then a third. Fourth. I’m pausing before my fifth to blog, but a fifth is around the corner.

It could have been vital to my existence. Or, maybe I was wrong. Maybe it just looked important. Maybe it was an invitation to apply for yet another credit card.

As a result of this paper chase I made no inroads on the 45 page single-spaced packet of notes. I can’t decide which is more disconcerting: the fact of the missing slip of paper, or the time lost searching for it.