Bizarre Lost and Found

Everyone can relate to that sickening feeling when something goes inexplicably missing, such as the TV remove, car keys, tiny little screw that fell off the table, a cat, the mind, etc.
Most times, the item will reappear in a day or two.
Ah, here it is, between the couch cushions! Found it, right here under the car seat! Oops, here it is atop the fireplace shelf!
Last year, I lost my checkbook - and my mind - and could not find the dadblammed thing. The ensuing chaos, thanks to a bank error, eclipsed the agonizing checkbook loss.
When I realized that it has disappeared, I checked the usual places, became worried, dug deep into every conceivable nook and cranny, panicked, and then, sadly, dragged myself to the bank when I came to grips with the fact that this checkbook was GONE.
My investigative effort concluded that someone perhaps had stolen the checkbook out of my office, so therefore I had no choice but to cancel the rest of the booklet.
This turned out to be a huge disaster.
Rather than just cancel the remainder of the booklet (I just happened to remember the last check I wrote), the bank mistakenly canceled the entire box.
Bill mayhem ensued, with a dozen or so checks being returned. The city shut off my water. Nasty threatening letters were sent to me. MCI called every 0.00009 seconds to remind me that a bill was overdue.
Subsequently, I had to get an apology letter from the bank and send it around to everyone so that they could get their records fixed and clear my good name.
Anyway, the checkbook disappearance became quite the pain.
For the past year, I have occasionally wondered what the heck happened to that checkbook. No one tried to use the checks, so I decided that I had misplaced it, and it wasn't stolen after all.
Today, the family took a little ride in my wife's car (It gets way better gas mileage than mine does) to find the shortest route possible to take my son, Curt, to school starting Thursday.
We live in Pinewood, and we literally have to drive him all the way to China (population 1,100) to go to his preschool class. For some reason, the school district has decided that if we want to use the bus service, our son would be the first to get picked up in the morning and last to be dropped off in the afternoon, meaning that the poor 4-year-old would spend an estimated three hours of his day riding a bus.
No way.
So we're trying to find the best way to get from Pinewood to China, driving around all kinds of back-country roads, and my wife goes into the glove compartment to look for a map.
Bang, there's the old checkbook.
I scoured my wife's car in search of it, but for some reason, I didn't look in the glove compartment. Even stranger, I've been in that glove compartment during the past year and didn't see the checkbook. I have no idea how it ended up in there.
And what was the date of the last check - written on the day I lost the book?

Aug. 6.

That's TODAY, sports fans. Yep, we found that checkbook exactly a year ago from its disappearance.
Strangely, the checkbook's disappearanced marked the start of the most taxing, challenging and emotionally draining year of my life. Hurricane Katrina came and put our news team to the test, but then Rita took enduring hardship to a new level.
Other than for record-keeping purposes, the checkbook is useless, I suppose, although perhaps its discovery signals the end of the year's worth of white-knuckle craziness.
If nothing else, it is nice to have that gut-twisting, mind-befuddling mystery finally solved.