The original post: /r/glitch_in_the_matrix by /u/interstella_sees on 2024-12-23 22:44:37.

One day, I experienced what can only be described as a glitch in the matrix. I was heading to the post office, and before leaving the house, I slid my heavy metal credit card into the pocket of my pajama pants. I remember doing it clearly—the weight of the card, the cool metal against my hand, and the deliberate motion of putting it in my pocket. I even felt the card there as I drove.

When I arrived at the post office, I instinctively reached into my pocket to retrieve the card, but it wasn’t there. I checked again. Nothing. I emptied my pocket, ran my hand along the fabric, and patted down my entire outfit. Still nothing. Puzzled, I returned to my car and searched the seats, the floor, and even the center console, thinking perhaps I had somehow dropped it or misplaced it on the way. But no luck.

By this point, I figured I must have left the card at home, even though I was sure I had felt it during the drive. Frustrated but resigned, I drove the short distance back to my house, my mind replaying the moment I had placed the card in my pocket, trying to convince myself that I had somehow imagined it. When I parked, I got out of the car and stood up to walk into my house…and froze.

The card was in my pocket.

I felt it immediately—the familiar heaviness and the unmistakable outline of the metal card pressing against my leg. I reached into my pocket, and there it was, sitting exactly where it should have been all along. My stomach dropped. I stood there, rooted in place, trying to make sense of what had just happened.

I checked and rechecked my pocket again, even though I knew it was impossible to miss the card. The pocket wasn’t deep enough to lose it, and the weight of the card made it impossible not to notice. There was no way it could have been caught in the fabric or overlooked during my earlier searches. And I’m certain I didn’t put it back in my pocket during the drive home—I was too focused on the mystery of where it had gone to even consider doing that.

This isn’t the first time something like this has happened to me. Over the years, I’ve noticed small, inexplicable events that make me question reality. I even have a name for it: I call them “gremlins.” It’s as if these mischievous forces mess with me to make me feel crazy. They’ll hide things in plain sight, move objects around, or make me doubt my own memory. This day at the post office was just another instance in a long line of strange occurrences that I can’t explain.

I’ve tried to rationalize it a hundred different ways since then, but no explanation feels satisfying. The entire sequence of events defied logic. It was as if reality had momentarily bent or shifted, and the card had disappeared into some unknown void, only to reappear when I least expected it. To this day, I can’t explain what happened. All I know is that for those brief, surreal moments, it felt like I had stepped outside the normal rules of the universe.