Story of my life

Isn't life ironic?
Three years ago I created a friend's wedding invitation (my quasi-business) as their wedding gift. It was a generous gift. I would have normally charged $5 per invitation, but they paid cost. As a "thank you" they gave me a $100 gift certificate to a catalog clothing line that I never shop at. At the time I was grateful but a little bummed. I could have really used the cash to help pay for life as a poor med school family. So I put it aside and went on struggling. Through the years that followed I thought I should use it to buy a winter coat. I haven't had a new coat since before I was married and typically go through the winter in hoodies (small violin playing in the background). Then this week I finally decided to look on the web site. A stroke of good fortune. With the specials and prices it featured, I figured that I could get a coat and a much needed new pair of shoes (to replace the milk-stained clown shoes I wear). So I got all geared up and excited.
Rewind about a month ago. I was organizing my craft room and came upon a hanging set of files that had been untouched since our move. In So Cal they had served as my "office" in the kitchen, holding all of our important papers. They hadn't been distrubed since we moved. Sidenote-- funny how important papers really aren't that important after a major change. Any ways, in that file was the aforementioned gift certificate. But coming upon the files, I wanted to be like a pioneer and "Use it up, wear it out, make it do, do without." So I took out the papers and hung up the files to hold my sticker collection.
Now today, I had to presence of mind to get the coat and shoes. But I can't find the #@!* gift card papers! I've looked EVERYWHERE. Why does it always work out this way? Now I can't possibly just go out and buy a coat and shoes, because there's a possiblility that I could get them free of charge. And my uber-cheap mind cannot lay hold of the idea of committing such an atrocity. It's no problem for me to go to Target and plunk down and chunk of change for junk, but buy something a little more expensive that could be useful? Never. And it would just be the story of my life to struggle with this all winter, finally buy a coat on clearance at the beginning of spring after freezing my tush off and find the paper a week later.
Did I tell you about the iPod? Well, that's a story for another day, my little violin player is tired.