At first I thought it wasn’t really lost.  I was certain my blue sweater was just misplaced and would show up soon.  You know the one – an over-sized import of some unknown hairy synthetic fiber, with gorilla-arm sleeves, three buttons and two utterly worthless little pockets.  I told you all about it.

Well, my sweater is still gone.  It’s been missing for weeks now and I am really upset.  I mean, why me?  What did I ever do to deserve this?  Why is it always me who loses things?  Why can’t it be somebody else?  It’s just not fair.

I lost my red sweatshirt a couple months ago and before that, my tan vest, the one with all the nifty snaps and zippers on it.  And now, my blue sweater.  I’m telling you, I have had it with this.  I want my blue sweater back and I want it now!

Alright people, put your heads down on your desks.  And no talking!  Whoever took my blue sweater – and you know who you are – I ‘m going to leave this room for three minutes and when I come back, my sweater had better be on my chair.  Do I make myself clear?

Of course, it’s my own fault.  I’m a terrible person, unworthy of owning such a fine sweater in the first place.  Think of all the deserving people in the world who would have been grateful to have had that sweater.  Chilly Londoners who can only imagine the joys of central heating, Muscovites with nothing to warm the Russian winter but those gray cardigans with the stretched-out elbows, poor shivering children in Hawaii – well, maybe not Hawaii – poor shivering children in Minnesota .  They would have loved my blue sweater.  They would have taken care of it.

I’m a bad person.  That’s all there is to it.  A good person never would have let that sweater out of her sight.  She wouldn’t even have taken it off.  It’s my own fault.  I deserve to lose my sweater.  In fact, I’m so bad I probably never deserved to have it in the first place.  Losing my sweater was just simple justice, the rebalancing of the universe, a clear case of cardigan karma.

If you give my sweater back to me, I promise I’ll be a better person.  I will put my shoes away instead of leaving them all over the hallway.  I’ll hang up my keys on that little hook right inside the door the minute I get home, and I’ll return every last library book.  On time.  Honest.  Give me back my blue sweater and I will become a paragon of organization.  Really.

Of course, I’m not stupid.  I’ve been around.  I know the surefire way to make my blue sweater reappear.  If I admit defeat, it’ll show up within days.  All I have to do is give up, go to Megamart, and buy another blue sweater, preferably a cheap import of unknown hairy synthetic fiber with gorilla arm sleeves, three buttons and two utterly worthless little pockets.  But then I’d have two nearly identical blue sweaters and why would I want that?  I couldn’t even keep track of one.

Come on, now.  I’ve been through denial, anger, guilt and bargaining over this loss.  If I were you, I wouldn’t hold my breathe for acceptance.  Why don’t you just let me have my blue sweater back, OK?  Please?