It's a question that nags at me for no good reason. To set it up we must go back to a distant time (a good 20 years), a distant land (38th Street in Brooklyn), and a late hour of a summer evening.

My brother and I were outside with Otto and Phyllis, maybe others but I can't recall. I can't remember any of what we were talking about, but we laughed until our sides hurt. For some reason, my brother had brought out a big yellow flashlight -- we were looking for something in the dark and not having any luck finding it. In doing so, we somehow managed to lose the lens of the flashlight (not sure why we would have unscrewed the cover, but apparently we did and the lens got away from us).

We then spent the next few minutes (or hours, for all I could tell) searching, in vain, for the clear plastic lens that had mysteriously hidden itself in the darkess beneath the soft amber light of the lamp-post.

Eventually we gave up and repositioned ourselves on the hood of a parked car, to tell more jokes, start to look at our watches and comment on how late it had become.

The laughter was finally ebbing, the night winding down, when the Russian livery driver from the next house drove up and started to park his car across the street from us. After backing in, he turned his front wheels toward the curb and inched the car forward --

Crunch!

We looked at each other and tried to say "Found it!" but we were doubled-over with laughter, unable to talk through our convulsions.

The question that lingers, albeit unnecessarily, is this:

What the hell were we originally looking for that made us bring out that flashlight?
No one remembers. That is, I don't. Phyllis and Joe, understandably, don't even remember our being out that night. But I do. And I need closure!

Maybe Otto would remember...