Pillowcase Alert: 24x12 white standard size

Have you seen this pillowcase?

Length: 26 inches Width: 12 inches Weight: .02 lbs Description: Rectangle shaped standard white pillowcase with one dime-sized mascara stain, and one lipstick smudge – smells like apricot shampoo, Juicy perfume, with undertones of Irish Spring soap. Last Seen: On the night of August 08, 2008. Accounts vary as to the location – under the head of a sleeping dark-haired woman – or as the owner claims – in between her legs.

I sit before you now having just returned from a large scale full-house man hunt, or more appropriately, a pillowcase hunt. Label it another one of my absurd obsessions, but the missing pillowcase has (in my denial I refuse to use the past tense of had) unhealthy amounts of sentimental value woven into its 0 thread count fibers. I snatched it while on a kleptomaniac spree from a highway-side La Quinta. I misappropriated a handful of other miscellaneous items that now reside in a leftover Juicy Couture box.

The pillowcase has not been washed since its illegal transfer of ownership. Twice my mother has attempted to sneak it into the washing machine with the other "whites." I first offered the excuse that my pillowcase could not be classified, nor could it be confined within such a label as "white." Then I threatened a profession of stripping if I should detect a Downy fresh scent.

As I furiously type this embellished story, running mascara and a sniffling red nose adorn my face. I fought the famous quiver of lip as I threw my arms around in wild disbelief, but the twitch conquered my will power and left me wet and melting. The authorities have told me that my step-dad had taken the pillow - the limp and meaningless body beneath - for a backrest, and unintentionally kidnapped the pillowcase. My mother, handing out coffee and cookies to the officers, asked politely "What will you do if you find it in the wash?" Prostitution is always an option.

"What is the value of the pillowcase?" The detective asked. How can one explain to a middle-aged, balding, avid baseball patron the value in a starched La Quinta pillowcase? "Sir, it is not monetary, but sentimental." He looked at me dumbstruck. Apparently the heart wrenching, gut splitting, all consuming grief that had crippled my body was not apparent to him. He drew a large "0" with a slash through the middle, and scratched the flakes from his exposed scalp. "Well ma'am we will do all we can to locate the missing pillowcase. I will contact you if we reach any new developments." It was my turn to turn a look of shock on him, my jaw dropped wide. "That's it? Damn pigs," I muttered. He spun on his heel leaving a half-circle skid mark on the wood floor.

I poured a shooter of vodka over the top of my Sprite (a graduation gift from my cousin) and stirred with my middle finger. Upon draining the drink and crumbs left from the cookies, I rummaged through the refrigerator, but I could find no comfort in the shelves of chilled dairy products and Capri-Suns, for I had long dried the six-pack of Warsteiner. I reminisced about the pillowcase's listening skills, its ability to double as a tissue, and the feel of it in between my thighs during pornographic dreams.

Tonight I will sleep in a dry home, and so I will listen to Josh Martinez, dump the contents of the Couture box, and thumb the time-worn receipts for their road trip memories.

"So instead Imma finish my drink and have another while you think about how you used to be my lover."