LETTERS FROM HOME: MATTERS OF LIFE, DEATH AND THE MYSTERIES THAT BESET MARRIAGES

July 30, 1998

Dear Pat,

These are the facts, ma'am. It was a Saturday like many others. I was working the day shift. The cops had solved a murder, a politician was in town, there were obituaries to write. The usual matters of life and death.

DC called at 11:35 a.m. to ask me to lunch. We bought sandwiches -- tuna and veggie burger -- and drove to a little garden next to the university. There's a fountain and flowers and plants. Somebody cares about it.

We sat on one of the wooden benches, planning the rest of the day. Out-of-town guests were coming for a cookout that night. And DC was going to return a small appliance to the store.

It was an AC/DC TV purchased for the purpose of watching the last round of the British Open golf tournament while driving home from Cincinnati. Someone in the family is an impulse buyer.

But the TV was too big. And the reception in a moving vehicle was bad.

DC and I finished lunch and walked back to the van. I noticed a Dumpster nearby and dropped the sandwich bag in. We stopped at a bookstore for a magazine before DC dropped me off back at work at 1:03 p.m.

Those are the facts. The rest is one of those marital mysteries.

DC called again only a few minutes later. She couldn't find the receipt for the TV. She'd put it on the floor of the van -- DC's floor filing system -- but it was nowhere in sight now. Had I seen it?

I did dimly recall picking up a receipt, the way you sort of remember brushing your teeth. I said I might have slipped the receipt into the sandwich bag before throwing it into the Dumpster.

"Oh, no" was all DC said.

You and I will have to imagine the scene a short while later, DC climbing into the Dumpster to retrieve the sandwich bag. Later she said the climbing wasn't the hard part. It was being stared at by the throng of band camp students walking by.

DC called again a while later, sounding exasperated with me. The receipt wasn't in the bag.

My wife has many endearing qualities. One of them is the knack of proclaiming as lost shoes or scissors that suddenly appear in plain view once I take up the search. Gently I suggested she might have overlooked the receipt amid the many wrappers in the bag. Look again, I said.

I can't, she said, sounding downright forsaken.

She'd thrown the bag back in the Dumpster.

Which raises a question everyone may have to answer at some point in their life: What amount of money would require you to bound into a Dumpster not once but twice in the same day. In DC's case it was $187.

At least this time no audience assembled to watch.

The tequila and margarita mix were already on the counter and DC was mopping the floor when I got home from work. These are two signs my wife is unhappy. DC gave me the sandwich bag and a surly look.

She was right, the receipt wasn't there.

I searched the van. No receipt. When we noticed DC's mother was missing during the cookout, we found her combing the van for that damnable receipt.

But there was no receipt.

DC was exhausted and still grumbling about having to buy a TV we didn't want when I came to bed that Saturday night. The timing seemed right to disappear into my new magazine. As I settled in on my side of the bed and opened the pages, out fell a tiny slip of paper.

Mystery solved. Marriage saved.

Love, Sam

~Sam Blackwell is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.