I’m writing on my Dell laptop right now, and it again is powered by my Dell adapter.

It required a long round-trip to the velodrome at Laoshan, on the western edge of Beijing. But it was there.

As I was walking into the press workroom there, I noticed on the door a sheet of paper, more or less 8.5-by-11, with a message in maybe 30-point type about how “a Dell adapter was left here on 22-8-08. Please come to the Help Desk to claim it.”

I was massively relieved.

So I went to the Help Desk, and the girl there was convinced, eventually.

I got her attention, went to the door, closed it halfway so she could see the notices posted on it, pointed to the sign about the adaptere and said, “That’s me. I left that adapter here.”

I showed her my (by now) juiceless Dell computer, and she pulled out my adapter from below the counter. I noted it had three prongs, American style, so it had to belong to an American, so it must be mine … and we had a happy ending on our hands.

I was lucky that the venue had two more events at it. Had Friday been the last day, there may have been no one around Saturday, and I may never have seen the adapter again.

So, caught a break there. Second time that has happened here. A week before, I left my tape recorder behind at the Main Press Center … got to an event involving cycling and Sarah Hammer (maybe it was that velodrome that was killing me) … thought I had lost it, somewhere … and got back to the MPC and found the tape recorder under a sheaf of info papers.

Anyway, I will have more nightmares of this sort. Forever.

Heck, I still occasionally have dreams about going to play for my high school baseball team and not having my glove. Or going to the football game without a helmet. And that’s been only 30-plus years.