Missing!

I always tell Tim that if I die first, he will have to sell the house 'as is' because he knows where NOTHING is.

"Do we have band-aids? a heating pad? extra guest towels?  tape? scissors?  toilet paper?  the check book?  my cell phone?  milk?"

Seriously, if it can't jump up and down, waving a flag and screaming "Here I am! Here I am!" while a big neon arrow hangs above it, he can't find it.

I have seen the man literally stand in front of an open fridge telling me we don't have any butter when there are four pounds of it staring back at him.

"Oh.  Well.  How was I supposed to see it behind the yogurt?"

 Yeah.  I can see where that would be a problem what with the clear glass shelves, and also because the butter has only been kept there since, hmm. let me think, FOREVER!

At least when I can't find something, there is a very good reason for it...it's because I have put it someplace  so safe that no one, including me, would think to look for it there.

Most recent case in point:  a phone number on a post-it.

I was given the number late on a Friday afternoon about two weeks ago and I stuffed it into my purse among the eighty-six thousand old dry cleaning tickets, thirty-nine dozen empty Halloween candy wrappers, one hundred pens (only two of which actually work), fifty stubs of old eye/lip pencils, assorted flip-flops (for pedicures), twenty-six pounds of change all in pennies and nickels, and twelve million dollars worth of twenty percent off coupons for Bed Bath and Beyond from 2006 that I habitually carry.

At some point on Saturday, I got the oh so brilliant idea to put the post-it someplace safe, so that I could actually find it to call first thing Monday morning.  And that is the last time I saw that post-it.

I spent days looking for the crummy little thing.  I looked in all the usual places like the office, my bedside table, jewelry box, and bathroom counter.  I looked in less likely places, hoping to shift the blame for losing it, like Tim's bedside table, Tim's dresser, Tim's "basket o' crap" (which is the male equivalent to my purse) in the TV room.  No post-it.  It had vanished into thin air.

I played a few rounds of the "If I were a post-it,where would I be?" game and the "If I were going to put something in a really safe place, where would it be?" game, but I was so bad at both of them I didn't even get the consolation prize of a years supply of Rice-a- Roni, let alone my post-it.

Finally, after opening the same drawers/cupboards/doors for the thousandth time in the mad, hope that the stupid post-it would have magically appeared, I had to give up, call the person who gave me the number, admit that I was losing my mind and/or stupid, and ask for the number again.  Ugh.

And the thing is, I just know, based on past experience that that lousy post-it will show up when and where I least expect it.  One day, I will open the freezer, or decide to organize the garage and there it will be, mocking me, like the cup of coffee I lost awhile back.

One minute, I had the cup in my hands, the next, I had no idea where I left it.  We were getting ready to go out, so I couldn't mount a full scale search and rescue mission, but I did try to retrace my steps and even made slurping noises, calling, "Here coffee, coffee," but to no avail.  My coffee was nowhere to be found.

About a week later, Tim opened the hall closet to get something out and emerged with a coffee cup and a funny look on his face. 

"Remember that coffee you lost?" he asked, holding it at arms length as though it were a poisonous snake or ticking time bomb.  "I think I just found it...or what used to be it.  Now, it's more like a science experiment gone bad."

Eww.  Well, that's one way to kick the coffee habit.

But my all-time best (worst?) was years and years ago (which I unfortunately couldn't blame on age, like I do now), and involved a ring.

This was the first really "nice" piece of jewelry Tim had given me, and I was sooo careful with it.  Right up to the moment I lost it.

I had packed it in our bags to go to Pennsylvania for Easter, and when we got there, the ring was gone.

I blamed the airline employees, sure that it had been stolen, but  Tim pointed out that since we had driven ourselves, that was unlikely.

All through Easter, I checked and rechecked our bags.  I fretted, fumed and worried, anxious to get home.  Finally, the holiday came to an end, we drove home, and I barely waited for Tim to slow down before I was out of the car, making a beeline for our apartment.

No ring.  I looked high and low and everywhere in between.  No ring.  I ripped apart every drawer in the place.  I searched old suitcases, purses and toiletry kits.  No ring.

"Pray to Saint Anthony," my mother advised, nodding sagely.  "It always works for me.

I prayed.  No ring.  I prayed harder, but he must have been helping my mother find all the things she lost (a full-time job even for a saint), because I still couldn't find that darn ring.

"Put it out of your mind,"  Tim told me.  "If you don't think about it, you'll remember what you did with it."

Good plan, general.  Except for one tiny little flaw.  Not thinking was clearly how I got into this mess in the first place!!!  Got a plan B you'd like to share?

Days turned to weeks, weeks to months and then one day, I took down a box from the tippy-top closet shelf where I kept mementos, opened it to put something in and...there was the ring!

To this day, I still have no idea how it came to be in that box.  I suspect elves.  Or maybe fairies.  Hmmm. Possibly a poltergeist.  Because I know I couldn't possibly have put it there.  I would have put it someplace "safe".