The Mystory of the Missing...

Several weeks ago we came home from a trip. Glenn had his cell phone in hand. He knows he did! We have not seen it since. We have looked and looked and looked--in, under, behind, around and through and all that again. We operated on the theory that if we bought a new one, the old one would show up. We did get a new one and the old one still hasn't shown up. Case closed? It must have fallen into the black hole!

Recently our 9 year old granddaughter lost her retainer. This was not the first time. She was here with her family and her cousin's family. Twelve of us were looking and praying and looking. Her family was planning on packing that evening, but we spent the evening looking every place and checking it twice for that retainer. Lucky for us we got a bonus, they stayed an extra day! Her 10 year old cousin promised her that if she didn't find it, he personally would contribute money to help her replace it. The drama! Her dad finally found it at the bottom of a little garbage container. Fortunately it only had paper products in it.

One time our daughter lost a special ring over at the church in the grass while she was playing with a large group of kids. She came home devastated. We had a house full of neighbor kids.
All of us dropped to our knees and asked for divine intervention. Then we all went over to the church, formed a line and started looking. We found it, miraculously! She later lost that ring along with her wedding rings...they fell into the black hole.

Has this ever happened to you? When you take the clothes out of the dryer there is one sock missing from a pair . I have a little basket above the dryer for socks that don't have a mate. Socks are constantly rotating in and out of that little basket. The problem was more chronic when we had 16 feet trending around the house. (No wonder I get the sock batch of laundry folded in a flash...only 6 feet to clothe!) Sometimes the missing mate is found all wadded up and dirty in random places like behind a sofa or the washing machine, out in the yard or under the bed. But often they are never found. One time I mentioned this phenomenon to a group of women and one woman said that she had never lost a sock in the laundry. I didn't like her after that. I didn't even want to know how she did that. I didn't believe her! Another time we had a washing machine repairman come and I actually stood on a chair to look over his shoulder when he pulled the tub out so that I could see all the missing socks. There were none! Hmmm...the black hole?

Then there are the keys, the gloves, the shoes, the glasses, the ear rings, the wallets, the papers, the library books., the baseball caps. All these things usually, but not always, show up. In a house that has "a place for everything, and everything in it's place" this never happens. Well we do have a place for everything and if it isn't in it's place, I hardly know where to look. Sometimes history is a clue. Sometimes a little looking around helps. Sometime the whole family has to be enlisted to help look. Sometimes finding it results in a faith promoting story.

I wonder how many hours of our life we spend looking for stuff? I can't tell you how many hours I have spent looking in the garbage, I am a pro. UGH!


A friend of mine used to say, "the angels must have needed it".

Some things we lose leave big holes. Others things are lost and gone from our minds. We hardly remember that we had them. Once Glenn lost his trunk in a mission transfer, he has never completely recovered from that.

Glenn and Clark keep the score pretty even for lost and misplaced things. I run a close second. Actually Clark is pretty good a puting things where they belong. If he losses any thing, it is usually while we are traveling. I have to keep a close inventory of the phone, the wallet, the hat, the jacket, the key, the money.

I hate to lose things! I mean really lose them. It totally unstrings me. I find it hard to concentrate and move on until it is found. Clark has been the culprit for many a missing thing. He doesn't steal it, it is just in is room.

This past week I had my credit card out for an internet purchase. Glenn and I remember seeing it on the desk. Careless me. Glenn thinks he picked it up and "put it in a safe place", which is the scariest thing of all. When I put something in a "safe place" I may not find it for months! Well, we have done the looking everywhere thing and we can't find it. We think it fell into that black hole.