Dig

One weekend back at home, I stumbled over this photo from my third grade birthday party. It was just sitting in my desk drawer, probably in more or less the same spot for the last twelve years or so. Funniest picture ever: my little friends and I, sitting at one of those faux picnic tables they had at that low-rent Sports Park USA-knockoff they had (still have?) there in Edison, with a pudgy, pouty Andrew Schwartz looking indignant into the camera. You've gotta remember that this was the kid, nine years old, who, at the Loewingers' birthday party a few months back, ate an entire medium-sized pan pizza. He was a little piggy.

Naturally, since Andrew and I no longer keep in touch, I wanted to bust out this picture for the rest of my friends, so we could share an evil laugh at someone else's expense. So, I went to find this photo which, mind you, hadn't moved more than five inches in the past decade-and-then-some, and it's gone! Now how will Aneesa and Val and I make fun of the formerly obese?

So, I'm searching for this lost photo. I'd post "Lost Photo" signs on all the electric poles around town, but I don't have a picture of the photo to use. Instead, I'm searching through all my albums, through loose photos in my desk drawer, through those envelopes you get from the photo developing places. It's fun, going back, re-discovering old memories — makes me feel like an archaeologist. It's less fun when I found something and then lost it again 'cause I'm like an archaeologist without a sensible organizational scheme.