VENTURA COUNTY NEWS : Replacing a Lost Identity

I should have known it would be a bad week.

The ancient Greeks looked at chicken bones to learn such things. I looked deep into the garbage can at a fast-food place and learned nothing.

I saw a half-hundred half-eaten burritos, the smeared blotch of refried beans on paper plates, pools of cold hot sauce. I saw myself bending over and inserting my left arm shoulder-deep into the muck, pawing the remains at the bottom of the can. The Greek oracles would have seen looming tragedy. I saw congealing tacos.

My daughter was rolling her eyes in the manner perfected by 15-year-old girls who are, likeohmigod, totally repulsed by their parents’ juvenile behavior. Other customers watched with mild interest, trying to figure out whether I was searching for a lost Shakespeare folio or just on the track of something tasty.

As I groped through the garbage, I should have seen this as an omen. But I was shortsighted. When I finally snagged my keys--the ones I’d dumped into the can along with the used napkins and enchilada debris on my tray--I thought that would be the end of it.

Ha.

The next day I lost my wallet, and I have no idea in whose dumpster or back pocket it has taken up residence. Gone are my credit cards and my driver’s license, my proof of insurance, my press pass, my gym pass, my work ID, my business cards, other people’s business cards--you never know when you might want to impersonate a vice president/finance--and a number of fine old $20 bills.

Computers might rule the world, but good old-fashioned plastic still runs it. Want cash? Just run down to the ATM . . . and pray. Need groceries? In lieu of your usual card swipe, surely that nice old Mr. Vons down at the corner store will give you credit. Want to rent a car? Or board an airplane? Or convince a skeptical cop that you have some minimal competence as a driver and some marginal validity as a human being? Just whip out that patch of air once occupied by your driver’s license.

This morning I couldn’t find my wallet, so I couldn’t go to work. Instead, I traipsed from room to room, flipping over magazines, peering under chairs, rattling trash cans. After my 10th circuit, my wife gently asked, “Well, where did you leave it?”

“If I knew that,” I barked, “it wouldn’t be lost!” She went back to bed, losing no sleep over my plight.

Here was the problem, reduced to its most fundamental journalistic terms: If I went out and were crushed by a cement truck, the coroner would have no way to figure out where to direct what was left of me. Eventually, I would be shipped to a weedy lot for eternal rest in an unmarked grave, along with a set of keys smelling, oddly, of cilantro.

Besides, some lout could use my credit cards to buy a big-screen TV, leather couches, tickets to Kauai and all the other things I’ve been too cheap to get for myself.

For a while, I waited.

I know there are a lot of good boys and girls out there. Hardly a month goes by without a nice child finding a purse jammed with cash, calling the owner and walking off with a $50 reward and a feature story.

But this week all the good boys and girls must have been asleep at the switch.

Nobody called.

I, on the other hand, called every human being I’d seen in the previous 24 hours, but nobody had come across my wallet.

Finally, I realized I had to get down to business. In a fit of compulsive organization last year, I had stored my credit card numbers in my computer’s financial software. This morning, it took only a bit more than an hour to dig them out and then another hour on hold to cancel the cards.

Around lunchtime, I drove to the Department of Motor Vehicles. This was a heady experience. I wondered what name I’d offer if I were pulled over for failing to signal: Harry Houdini? L. Ron Hubbard? Carlos the Jackal? There’s nothing like no identity to get the fantasy drive working overtime.

Pumped up like an embezzler en route to Brazil, I regaled the waitress at a sandwich shop with the thrilling saga of my keys and wallet.

“Whoa!” she said. “Are we S-T-M-L-ing here, or what?”

“S-T-M-L?”

“Short Term Memory Loss,” she said, her eyes welling with needless sympathy.

Deflated, I managed to get a temporary license at the DMV without incident. In fact, there should have been a little more incident. To prove my identity, all I had to do was give my name, address, height, weight, eye color and Social Security number. I was hoping they’d ask my Aunt Ida’s maiden name or the addresses of my last 10 employers before they’d let someone like myself claim to be me.

In any event, things will be right soon, although I’m still puzzled about my sudden propensity to toss my keys, wallet and identity into oblivion.

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that these losses occurred around 9-9-99, the day some of the older computers were supposed to conk out but didn’t. That’s a very negative time, especially when uttered in German: “Nein! Nein! Nein, Nein!”

Even so, I don’t think my small misfortunes stemmed from anything that exotic.

As the Greek oracles used to say, some days are just like that.

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Steve Chawkins can be reached at 653-7561 or by e-mail at steve.chawkins@latimes.com.