Unger on a bender

At first, the initial indications of Robert's condition were subtle:

• Wiping down his high chair’s tray after meals.
• Diving into laundry baskets and then carefully picking up all the displaced clothes.
• Combing his hair with a toothbrush.

Then the activity intensified. The other day I was watching the morning news and felt a strange tweak. I looked down to find Robert scouring a large freckle on my leg.

It seems the cosmic tumblers have aligned, and Robert is now experiencing a perfect storm of incoherence, mobility, and fastidiousness. He now reels about the apartment like a boozed-up Felix Unger, finding objects and placing them where, in his unformed mind, they belong. As a result, whenever something important is missing, my wife and I do a lot of dumpster diving.

So far, we’ve found a number of small toys and two cans of cat food in the trash, a pile of freshly cleaned clothes in a kitchen cupboard, and some silverware in my bottom dresser drawer.

How long do you suppose before Felix sobers up?