The Lost Clutch

Day Four: Serially Lost

Today’s Prompt: Write about a loss: something (or someone) that was part of your life, and isn’t any more.

Once upon a time in New York City, somewhere in the mid ’80s there were these two girls, friends to the end, Thelma and Louise of the mind kind, who spent their Saturdays in on the road, again. Let’s call them This One and That One – we did. Or maybe Francine and Connie.

Anyway, This One had a 1974 red mustang.

It looked good, and that saying, about guys, “is he cute, and does he have a car” was big then, and we figured, let’s just get the car, because apparently we weren’t gonna get the guys.

Now, this mustang was SO rad, that it was bad, if you get my meaning.

The destination was always New Jersey. Insane, I know, but you gotta understand that when you live in the BIG CITY, heading across the river was like a vacation. Sometimes we’d go over the GW Bridge, or maybe through the Lincoln Tunnel, depending on what our plans were. Most of the time, we were just free wheeling, heading off and letting the road take us to whatever mall it had a mind to go. The Paramus Mall saw a lot of action, but sometimes the Outlets were the store de jor. Ladies, we know you understand this, but for those on the other side of the gender line, shopping was the be all of life. Hair Salons, Department stores, with the counters that served up perfumes, eye shadows, foundations, and lipsticks were our constant. There were stores that were just for earrings, and bracelets and all glittery things with which to adorn ourselves. And the big buys, clothes!

There was always a movie and dinner after a full day of shopping, There was this old fashioned, looks-like-a-railroad-car diner on Route 17, called The Bendex, that served up great food. But we weren’t fussy. Long as they had the never ending coffee for That One, and This One’s ever favorite – when in doubt eat breakfast – food, life was good.

One Saturday, after having had a grand old time, we headed back to Manhattan. That One lived there, and besides, there wasn’t any way to get to This One’s place except through Manhattan. As we pulled out of the Lincoln Tunnel, that little red mustang stalled! It was not a convenient place to do that, but we gave it a few minutes, and it started up and we managed the drive downtown. That One lived right at the corner of 6th Avenue and Houston. Almost there, right at the light… yup, you guessed it. That car just stalled right out, again! We were just at the point of the turn, but it was no go. We got out of the car, and stood, looking at each other, scratched our heads, and wondered what were we going to do. Luckily, we were right by this space to park, so we managed to push it into a cockeyed parking position. And that’s when it happened. This One leaned into the car to get her purse, of the clutch bag kind, and it was gone!

She looked in the back, looked on the floor, and realized that little clutch was nowhere to be found! She stood up and looked at That One over the top of the car and said, “I’ve lost everything!”

Now I’m sure you’re all wondering how that could be, but you have to understand (and ladies, I’m not talking to you, because you understand these things), that the purpose of a purse is to hold everything. It’s that ‘place for your stuff,’ and to have it go missing is catastrophic. But there they were, standing on the corner of 6th and Houston, and This One was in the worst way, having an end to what had been a good day.

The resolution? Well, you’ll have to tune in next time to find out “where in the world [was the] Carmen Miranda” of Clutches… TBC