I may be losing my mind.

(Stop cackling. This is serious.)

Really. First, all last weekend, I was ransacking my apartment to find my missing watch. I remembered taking it off to put on hand lotion before going to bed on Friday night, and when I realized I wasn't wearing my watch on Saturday morning I looked on my bed for it. Then I remembered that, also before falling asleep on Friday night, I had shaken out my duvet (while I was under it) to spread it out more evenly (that's a comforter for the less metrosexual males among you), so I figured I must have inadvertently flung my watch across my bedroom in the process, kind of like the way an unfolded parachute can bounce things around when held on its edges by a number of people spread around the perimeter. I searched the entire room, repeatedly, to no avail. Then I accused the cat of stealing my watch to play her little kitty games, which she vehemently denied, and I looked in all her usual favorite toy spots anyway, also to no avail. At one point I idly wondered if I might have taken my watch off at work on Friday while putting on lotion (hey, I told you my skin is DRY!), but I knew without a single doubt that I had removed that watch while lying in bed on Friday night before going to sleep (I could visualize it), so there was no point dwelling on it. I just kept looking under and inside of every single freaking thing in my bedroom, my closet, my living room, my shoes, my piles of crap ... everywhere. But, no watch. And while the watch I've been wearing lately isn't the only watch I own, nor is it the most expensive watch I own, or even the one with the most sentimental value, it also wasn't cheap and I really, really like it -- and the two extra watchbands that came with it are of absolutely no value to me without the watch itself.

So I pretty much accepted (unhappily) the fact that the watch probably wouldn't turn up until I move out of this apartment. And then, naturally, the watch turned up. Where? On my desk. At work. On Monday morning. Where I was absolutely positive I hadn't left it.

Shut up.

Second bit of proof that I might be losing my mind: My staff identification card from my place of employment went missing about a week ago. I used it to swipe into a secure area in my building, placed the card in the pocket of my slacks, and then never saw it again. When I got home that night, I checked my pockets and it was gone. (No holes in the pockets. I checked. Many, many times.) I checked my purse, my wallet, and everything else I was carrying, but it wasn't there. I was afraid it might have dropped out of my pants pocket when I dropped trou' in the ladies' room at work that day. The next day, I checked my desk but it wasn't there. I asked colleagues if they had seen it, but they hadn't. I asked the maintenance guy who cleans the bathrooms, but he hadn't seen it. I checked every drawer, pocket, corner, and nook, but no staff ID card. That fucker costs about 30 bucks to replace, but it mostly pissed me off that I must have dropped it somewhere in the building where I work, yet no one had returned it to me. It would be easy enough for someone to look me up in the staff directory and find out exactly where I work in order to call me or send it via interoffice mail, but no one did that.

Over a week after the ID card disappeared, just after I found the "missing" watch, I was looking for something in my wallet and I looked one more time for my staff ID card. Guess what I found? My fucking staff ID card, that's what.

But maybe I'm not losing my mind. If this was a movie, it would be someone trying to make me THINK I'm losing my mind, right? I mean, just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean the aliens aren't out to get me. So here's the thing: I left a million dollars on my kitchen table this morning. If it's not still there when I get home, I will know for sure that something fishy is going on ....