The Quest

Where oh where could it be?

Burt’s wasn’t a quest to save humanity through world peace or to solve the hunger problem. No, his was much more banal than that. He merely wanted to find a Phillips-head screwdriver.

Was that too much to ask?

Last time he remembered having the tool, it was to work on the car and he only needed it then for one screw.

One lousy screw.

After that, he put it back where he found it in the garage toolbox, second drawer down from the top. He was sure of it.

Not only was the screwdriver not in the second drawer, but it wasn’t in any of the other drawers, nor was it in the garage.

The hallway closet had a few tools, so he searched every box and container it could be in to no avail.

Certainly the bathroom itself could have a hiding place or two, so he went searching there. Nothing but bathroom stuff and two scales that should have been tossed long ago because of the faulty weights it kept displaying every time he stepped on it. Both of them were 15 pounds off. Talk about coincidences.

Bedroom time. The junk closet within the bedroom was his next target. There he found assorted cables, plugs, connectors, nails, pens, cords, CDs, cassette tapes, and screws but no screwdriver. He held a Frampton Comes Alive cassette in his hand and wondered if he even had a cassette player anywhere in the house to play it. And he didn’t even want to think about going through his stack of 8-tracks and vinyl records. If he ever needed to downsize, however, the 8-racks would be a good place to start.

Burt stood in the closet and palmed his forehead. “What was I in here to get? What was it? What was it? Oh, the screwdriver. Where can that little guy be? I know he’s somewhere around here.”

He searched through all his storage bins and boxes on the overhead shelves. Nothing. He looked at his phone clock and realized he had already spent an hour looking for that one little tool, so off to the big box store he went.

“Oh, wait, if I go there, I have to go all the way to the back for it, but if I go to the auto parts store, it’s right there up front. Will cost me 50% more but I’m in and out in two minutes. That’s what I’ll do.”

Burt jumped in his car and made the three-minute trip to the parts store.

Just as predicted, he was out in less than five minutes and paid much more than at the big box store. He spent most of that time inside trying to decide which Phillips head he needed. There was the pointy tip and the flat tip, plus all different sizes and prices.

When he got out to the car, he opened his arm rest console and dropped the tool and receipt inside. Just as he was closing the console, he saw something shiny sticking up. There it was, the Phillips head screwdriver he was looking for in the first place.

Burt smiled and shook his head. If he took the new one back now, he could recoup four bucks. But, he’d have to go through the embarrassing moment of returning it within minutes of buying it. No doubt it happens all the time, but it still is embarrassing.

“Eh, I can always use two at home,” he thought. “Now, if I can only remember why I needed this thing in the first place…”

*******