Dazed and confused in Ra'anana

I keep losing my car. I continually park it one of the feeder streets that connect Ra'anana's main drag to the residential areas of the city, and then I go and do my errands. It usually takes me about 45 minutes to an hour to complete all the items on my list and then, inevitably, it is time to go home.

That's when the trouble begins. It never fails. I find myself on Ahuza Street, Ra'anana's main street, wondering where the hell I parked the car. I try to remember something distinctive about my parking space but the truth is that most of those side streets look the exact same so there are no easily identifiable landmarks to guide me. (If there was a shoe store on one corner and a chocolate store on the next, I would probably do much better at remembering where I was.)

So I stand in my spot for the next minute or so forcing myself to retrace my steps. Did I come from the left or the right of the bank (my usual destination at least once a week)? Did I walk north or south to the main street that runs east west?

If I am lucky, I have a little epiphany after a minute or two and I walk towards the spot that I think I parked. More than once I have been wrong. And more than once I have realized that I am parked one street over from where I thought I parked. And one time I stood outside a car that looked exactly like mine for about five minutes trying to figure out why my key code didn't work. Well, for starters it wasn't my car. It's not my fault that there are at least 20 cars exactly like mine driving around Ra'anana.

One of the reasons I continually misplace the car is that I am losing my mind. But the other, more subtle reason, is because I drive up and down these same streets a million times a week. The individual trips all blur into one another after a while. Was I on a banking mission? Or was I off to get loot bags for Yael's birthday party? Or was it pants for the boys? Or the post office? After a while all I remember is that each each trip begins at my house and ends on Ahuza Street. Everything else becomes an insignificant detail.

In an effort to avoid this problem in the future, I now park my car and stop to make note of exactly what street I am parked on. I repeat the street name out loud a few times in hopes that it will seer itself into my memory. I'd like to tell you that it's going well, but it's not. Today I returned to the spot that I thought had left my car and what a surprise ... it wasn't there.

I had a mini panic attack but then pulled myself together and noticed that I was on the right street, but the wrong block. I think things are looking up.