Wednesday, October 14, 2015

Lost & (Sometimes) Found

        I have a bad habit of misplacing stuff. I’ll have something in my hand, walk into another room, turn around, and poof, like the rabbit in a magic show, it disappears. Sometimes, it will turn up in an unexpected place. Other times, it’s gone for good.

Take my black slip, for example. I gathered some items from upstairs, including the slip, came downstairs, and lost the slip. Somewhere between my second and first floors, it disappeared. My staircase has but 13 treads. Ahh, you’re thinking, therein lies the problem. The cursed No. 13.

After a few weeks, I gave up the search and bought another slip. Several months later, while preparing for a summer beach trip, I pulled out one of my beach bags and there it was. Apparently I had used that bag to carry stuff down the stairs, but forgot about the slip when I placed the bag in my closet. 

A few months ago, I was taking off my earrings after church, when I realized I was wearing only one. “Oh, no,” I thought. “It must have come off when I took off my sweater during Sunday School.” I searched under my bedroom furniture with a flashlight anyway, and spotted something shiny among the dust bunnies. I went for my broom. What I swept out was my lost earring. It had the back on it, which means it never actually made it through my ear lobe, but fell from my hand after I raised it to my ear and put on the back. I couldn’t help but wonder, though, why no one at church had noticed that I was wearing only one earring.

Another lost-and-found was an expensive electronic dog collar. My two dogs each wear one, keeping them inside the boundaries of my underground fence. When I returned from a short trip one day, Maggie wasn’t wearing hers. Figuring she had snagged it on a fallen tree branch, I searched the woods immediately around the house as best I could. With all the forest debris, however, it was like searching for pirate’s gold buried in the sand. I borrowed a friend’s metal detector, thinking it would pick up the metal in the battery case. No luck. About a year later, my tenant found the lost one when he was walking through the woods behind my house and got off the trail to the barn.

Usually, when something goes missing, it’s because I set it down in a place that it didn’t belong. I wear glasses around the house, but take them off frequently to read or work at the computer. A few days ago, they skipped town. I searched all the logical places: my bedside table, the end table next to my sofa, the window ledge in the bathroom next to my commode, my computer desk. Remembering the “Most things turn up eventually” axiom, I gave up the search. Next day, I opened a desk drawer, and there they were!

I misplaced my drill battery once, but found it a day or so later on top of my hot water heater. Doesn’t everyone keep her drill battery there?

Unfortunately, some things defy the law of “most things turn up.” I haven’t seen my spare car keys or good binoculars in several years.

I often think I’ve lost my mind. It could be anywhere. If you happen to find it, please send it home. It comes in handy when I’m trying to find things.


3 comments:

  1. I SO relate to this post! I can't tell you the crazy places stuff has turned up days or weeks after I picked it up, and never put it down.

    By the way, my spare car keys must have eloped with YOUR keys. They also have been missing for several years.

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  2. Lovely adventure, thanks for sharing.

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