Einstein Car Wash on Sullivan has awesome super sucker upright canister vacuums that they let you use for free. The idea, I'm sure, is that you'll clean the innards of your car either before or after you pay for a trip through their car wash. But sometimes, like the day after I failed to stop at home for the truck before visiting Aslin-Finch to pick up a straw bale and so threw the bundle of dry grass into the back of my carpeted SUV, I filch a free vacuum and scram.

Yesterday karma caught up with me.

The car was gnarly, inside and out, thanks to a recent trip to the Washington coast. Two teenage boys in the back seat, a day at the beach and a ride over a slushy Snoqualmie Pass left our rig in such a sad state that for the past three weeks I've been expecting to find "Wash me!" scrawled across the back window.

So after work last night I finally turned into Einstein's and set about sucking sand from the seats, the floors and the ceiling – I don't want to know how it got up there. I'd just moved from the back seats to the front seats and was aiming the nozzle at the center console when it happened.

Mingling there in the drink holder with some loose change was a bright pink Post-it note. I don't know how long it had been there but I do know I'd written someone's name and phone number on it. I know this because I saw the name and number flash before my eyes before being sucked up into the nozzle. I also know that phone number had to be important because I'd taken the time to find a Post-it note on which to write down the number instead of scribbling it on a stray gum wrapper. Forty-six cents is all that was left behind.

Crap. Whoever that number belonged to was expecting a call from me. Either they needed something from me (that I no doubt promised I could handle) or they were going to do something for me (something important, as evidenced by the attention I'd paid to writing the number on a real piece of paper). And now that call would never come.

In an effort to set the world back in order, I did the right thing and paid for a car wash – the most expensive one they had. As top-of-the-line multi-colored foam coated the windows I hoped I was doing enough to charm the universe, and the person I was supposed to call would see this post and understand why I hadn't gotten back to them.

If it's you, call me. You have my number.