It started because as I was leaving the house this morning, I grabbed my laptop in the laptop bag so I could do a little writing later. What I needed, though, was not in the laptop bag, where I thought I had left it. It wasn’t there.

I looked around the house in the dull morning light- at the expected places, on the kitchen table, on the bookshelves with writing and New Mexico books, but no. It wasn’t around.

After three laps through the expected places, I had to scoot. I grabbed my laptop bag and left the house.

“It” was nothing super special to most people. And to me, it was also a non-major personal item. Except it was a little book I really liked, containing a “vocabulary” of key Spanish and English words related to New Mexico. It was a toolbox, for me, of words I wanted to learn. But… it was also a little book I purchased down at the Bosque del Apache Bird Sanctuary bookstore, when I was down there last year with my folks seeing the sojourners.

When I got to work and had a free moment, I looked up the Bosque bookstore’s phone number, and called it, waiting after the greeting until the line did not pick up and I was punted to voice mail. I hung the phone up and then did that one more time, and decided it was probably too early for them to be in, so I left my name, my number, my short story, and my request: an author’s name, and if they had any copies left.

I later did an Amazon search for the book, knowing what the graphic design of the book’s cover looked like, and what I thought it was named. My search did not uncover the book at Amazon.

At that point, I was like, shoot. I didn’t realize it was that much of a specialty book.

An hour and some passed, and I decided it was time to call the Bosque bookstore again. “Are you the gentleman looking for the book information?”, the clerk asked. “Yes- that’s right.”

“Oh great- I was just going to call you. I am sorry to let you know we do not have any more copies of that book here any more, and I did call the publisher and I was told it is out of print. The good news is the title of the book you told us is correct, and there are a few copies of it on Amazon.”

What?

After thanking her and hopping off the phone, I went back to Amazon and did a title search again, but this time I also had the author’s name.

And there some were.

Older versions.

But there they were.

Well, if they are on Amazon, there has to be some others out their floating around, I thought. I hopped over to a favorite book location site, addall.com, I have used for a long time to see where else other copies of the book might be, and there were a few options out there- the cheapest copy starting at $15 dollars, and and the others jumping right away to $40 and $45 and $50 copies.

I had originally bought my copy for $5.

I went to the website of the cheapest one, alibris.com, and lo, there it was- a version matching my lost copy exactly- so I bought it.

Naturally, tonight, I remembered the book and decided to do one more sweep of the bookshelves for it.

Did I mention it is a small, thin volume?

Because there, on the top shelf of the case with the New Mexico books, between one on New Mexico hikes and another on New Mexico history it sat. Small and thin.

At least I found the book.

And it’s good to know I will also have a spare one of it, in case I again misplace and refind the original.