I’m,
not sure if I should be happy or not. Should I celebrate? (I actually
don’t think I should. I want to. But I shouldn’t.)
I
found my slippers this morning. Been missing for a few weeks.
Of course, they were under the bed. Just about right where I would
have expected them to be. I just finally had a moment where I
needed to grab something that had been hiding under a bench at
the foot of the bed and decided to look a bit deeper while I was
on the floor. Find them I did, and that felt great.
Trouble
is, I bought two pairs of slippers a few months ago. This pair
that I found was one of those two. The reason I bought those slippers
was of another pair that was missing. The reason I’m not completely
thrilled right now is because those original missing slippers
remain in the missing category.
There’s
an old saying about things being in the last place you look for
them, which isn’t much of a joke since not too many people keep
looking after finding what they were looking for. But what happens
when you start finding the things you stopped looking for?
A
few months ago, I needed a can opener. I couldn’t believe we didn’t
have a spare one in the house, so even after giving up on opening
the can that evening I spent some time in the basement looking
around shelves where we keep assorted kitchen items. Never found
a can opener. I did find a lobster pot that we had assumed lost
years ago. And when I say assumed lost years ago…
Terry
and I had moved into this house with the assistance of a moving
company. When they came to the old house, they started labeling
boxes with numbered sticky tickets. You get the idea: Box 1, 2,
3, and ultimately little red stickers numbered all the way deep
into the hundreds of multiple hundreds. About a year after the
move, we opened a box that still had a label on it, and that began
a little “guess we haven’t needed this in a while” comedy routine
we shared here and there ever since whenever a box with a sticker
would get picked up.
It
had been about eight years since we moved into this house when
I went looking for a can opener. We thought the lobster pot had
been lost at the last house before the move. Sticker was still
on the box. All of which means somehow that box was never identified
about a decade ago, packed and moved, placed on a shelf that she
and I built in the basement, and at no time did we look inside
to find the pot.
So,
it’s more than tossing your car keys on the wrong counter and
looking around the kitchen in disbelief the next morning. Occasionally,
you really misplaced something. Really really really
misplaced something.
Somewhere
in this house there are a pair of hiking boots and a pair of slippers.
Has to be. Has to be. Could be in a suitcase I simply haven’t
unpacked. (Maybe there’s a sweater along with a couple of turtlenecks
I haven’t noticed are also missing.) The fun thing is, at some
point I should find them. And since my shoe size hasn’t changed
in many years, when I do find them it should result in a happy
bonus of getting them back. Just put them on and off I’ll go.
Friend
of mine wasn’t so lucky. He and his wife lost their car keys in
the same week. And when I say lost, I mean they each lost their
keys for two different cars, so four keys. Had to work with the
dealership, and it cost them over a thousand dollars. Seven years
later, they were moving some stuff around in the living room and
found all the keys in the drawer of a side table. No clue how
they got there, and about two years after the cars had been replaced
so the discovery was somewhat painful and worthless. She actually
hung the keys in the kitchen, kind of a passive aggressive message
to both of them to pay attention in the future. While I can’t
endorse it as a statement piece that brings the room together,
I can report that to date it has worked really well. Nothing else
lost or misplaced.
Now
I’m wondering about sweaters and turtlenecks. I probably should
go look in some luggage before I don’t get any sleep tonight.
While I do that, let me finish with this: Have you ever thought
about the stuff you’ve lost and never missed?