Saturday, July 24, 2010

Those Pesky Disappearing Items

I am convinced a malevolent spirit follows me and my peeps around, compelling semi-valuable items to permanently disappear on regular occasions — never to be found. There is simply no other explanation except perhaps that I am losing my gourd. I would rather not go there, at least not yet.

The latest involved a cell phone that belonged to the tween-ager who was visiting. It was charging on the kitchen counter as bedtime approached. Curfew had passed. To eliminate any temptation, I decided to hide the phone until the next day, in my dresser drawer.

At least that is where I thought I hid the phone. That was more than two weeks ago. We ransacked the house trying to figure out where I actually hid the phone. I even picked through the garbage, wearing disposable gloves. I made sure it wasn’t in the freezer or the wine cooler. The tween-ager and her mom, my beautiful mystery companion, have since returned to Texas, sans phone. Luckily, we have insurance to replace it, but I haven’t given up the search. At least once a day I look again. This is a big house with lots of crannies. But hope is fading fast. The tween-ager is miffed but still loves me, luckily.

On the same visit, a few days earlier, my BMC’s prescription reading glasses vanished one afternoon. We retraced her steps, from home to the coffee shop, to the newspaper office, then back home. The glasses are gone, as is her blue-jean jacket, which vanished on a trip a few days later to Wamego, possibly in the Oz Museum, possibly not. She brings it along to battle air-conditioning on steroids. Or she did. Past tense now.

I hasten to explain that we are not particularly flighty people. I have been accused of being positively OCD when it comes to keep things organized and in their place, and plead nolo contendre. I keep things tidy in my house and office, so I can find stuff. Except for the stuff that keeps disappearing.

One afternoon a few months before moving here, I was leaving work and put on my prescription sunglasses. A lens popped out. I was driving the chili-red convertible Mini Cooper my BMC and I jointly own but luckily had the top up because it was hot. No worries, I thought. I’ll find the lens when I get home.

When you have worn glasses for nearly a half-century, such mishaps are commonplace. At least a couple times a year I dig out my tiny screwdrivers and put a lens back in place, or if necessary head to an optician’s shop to let someone perform surgery.

The lens had disappeared. How could a sunglasses lens vanish inside a Mini Cooper? I searched for an hour. My brother and nephew arrived later that day from Austin on a visit. I offered the nephew, a hungry college student, twenty bucks if he could find the lens. He’s borderline brilliant and needs money, of course. No luck. Abster, the bright 12-year-old who was out a cell phone thanks to me, also took a run at finding it. It was gone.

Big deal, you say, except that these were tri-focal sunglasses that cost more than $300 to replace. I couldn’t simply replace the missing lens because I had bought the glasses in another town, before I had moved. Aaah well.

An extra garage door opener that I faithfully kept by the back door at my former home, which had a detached garage, vanished one day. I refused to spend money replacing it, the result being I eventually locked myself out of both the house and garage, which cost me $75 in locksmith fees. That only steeled my resolve not to replace the opener, and I never did.

Then there are the lost socks, books gone missing, bills I swore I mailed that never got there. It’s an ever-growing list of items I imagine are all piled somewhere, to be found someday.

Maybe I am losing my gourd. Nah. At least if I am, I have company. My BMC never did find her glasses or jacket.
Originally published in the Junction City (Kansas) Union, July 24, 2010.

1 comment:

  1. I am constantly losing the most important things that I own: keys, glasses (sun and regular), cell phones, and beers. Luckily, I have a faithful companion who doesn't give up searching easily. If you're losing your gourd, I'm right there with you. Frankly I think it's gnomes.

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