If you love something, set it free.

If it comes back, it is yours.

If it doesn’t, it never was.

If it comes back in 27 pieces, you probably need a mechanic.

***

It was gone.

Lost.

Forever one with the universe.

Or, at the very least, somewhere between Main Street and the parking lot of the 7-11.

It wasn’t something large or expensive or unique or critical to man’s existence.

It was one of those seemingly insignificant things that once you realize it is lost, you wonder what you’ll do without it.

What do I do now?

How will I go on?

Will my car blow up like the Hindenburg?

Oh, the humanity.

***

As I stood in my in-laws’ driveway and gazed upon the sight of the opened small, square metal door to my car’s gas tank I realized the sad, pathetic, shocking truth.

The gas cap was missing.

Up until five minutes ago I knew exactly where it had been - at the gas station, lying atop my car’s trunk. Where I had placed it in order to fill up the car before dropping my 3-year-old son off at Grammy’s house.

And before you ask, no, it wasn’t attached to the car with one of those fancy flap thingies you rich people have to keep said gas cap tied securely to your BMWs and Mercedes.

I have to remove it completely as I have each and every time I’ve owned the car. But I was distracted that particular morning and will plead to that effect in front of any judge (and my husband).

Answering my son’s questions about what the numbers on the pump meant, where the gas came from, why the sky was blue and if I thought Spider-Man could beat up Kung Fu Panda if the two ever met face to face. It was really too much for my mind to handle on a Monday morning.

So sue me if I was more than a little glad to hear the pump click off, effectively ending a 3-year-old’s loud remark that the guy standing at the pump next to us looked like the crazy, tattooed biker guy from “Wild Hogs.”

Smiling politely at the guy (who did have a bit of a serial-killer slant), I grabbed the receipt from the pump and jumped into the car and never looked back.

Oh, if only I had.

***

“Hey, Dad!” I yelled out to my father-in-law as I walked into their house. “Where are you?”

The response was a muffled "on the toilet" followed by what I could only guess was "for the love of God, what did she do now?"

Normal and understood behavioral patterns of a polite and civilized, respectful and gentile society would dictate that one withdraw to the sitting room and wait patiently while one's father-in-law finishes his business before proceeding.

Maybe in your family. But not in ours.

I plowed down the hallway, walked right up to the bathroom door and casually asked, “Can you drive a car without a gas cap or will it explode in a fiery cloud of death, killing everyone within 100 feet of it?”

He politely ignored the obvious question and quickly answered that, no, my car probably wouldn’t blow up and would I please just go away.

Taking him at his word (because, hey, why wouldn’t I believe the wise Yoda-like voice coming from the can?) I ran out the door and Indy 500-ed it back to the gas station.

But, alas, my little gas cap was already gone. Never to be seen again.

Or so I thought.

***

“Mommy, I have a present for you,” my little boy called out as I stopped by to pick him up later that day.

He ran up to me, clutching a bright yellow gift bag in his hand. I reached out and looked inside. Sigh. It was my gas cap...in (I took a quick count) about 27 pieces.

“Somebody ran over it,” my father-in-law, Captain Obvious, stated. “I went out and looked for it. Saw it on the side of the road.”

And then he uttered the words that will ensure my lifelong love for him.

“So I stopped and picked up all the pieces for you.”

Crazy, you might think.

But that’s our family.

And I wouldn't trade it for the world...not that I’m sure anyone would take it.

You can e-mail Kelley Baldwin at life-like-mine@hotmail.com.