Twenty pieces of underwear, all my socks (each divorced from its mate), multiple pairs of pantyhose of tortuous sizes, and all the trinket junk that covered the bottom of my panties’ drawer were flung around my bedroom such that a tornado couldn’t have left a bigger mess than I did in about 10 seconds.
I was searching the last bastion of hope for a piece of stainless steel hardware I needed for the transport of my sailboat mast in the “down” position when trailering “Scout” home for the winter months.
I thought I was so smart when I removed the cradle from the bow pulpit last spring and carried the heavy lunker to the trunk of my car—sure to know where I’d store it at home over the summer.
I had looked everywhere for the missing piece. I must have gone through 30 boxes in the garage, 10 in the shed, and another dozen in the barn hayloft before searching the basement, porch, kitchen, and, finally, my underwear drawer.
The mast hardware is just one in a long list of things I’ve misplaced over the years. I come from organized stock and I loathe to think I have a list of misplaced things that’s longer than my family tree.
The bag of winter clothes is on that list, along with my electric blanket and the four-foot high Christmas tree that I put away two years ago in the basement.
I’ve misplaced my carving tools, guitar music, all the spare light bulbs, four D-cell batteries I bought last week for the one flashlight that needs them, and 200 feet of LED lights that I use every year on the treeline of my driveway.
(But I know where the “Doritos Cool Ranch” potato chips are (and the dip), as well as my bag of chocolates and a bottle of red wine).
A recent update to my laptop required a restart and password verification before I could reap the “El Capitan” benefits. I’d written the secret letters on a piece of paper and put it away a year ago—in case I forgot what it was. And now where was it?
Flat stare.
Misplaced awareness—been there, done that one, too. I was engrossed in a television program with my daughter while my grandson sat at our feet, presumably absorbed in the show the grown-ups were watching. Not so.
There he was quietly jamming pieces of Kleenex up his nose until he packed his nostrils so tight that when he sneezed, it snowed gobs of white tissue everywhere.
I have revisited the same locations umpteen times in the last week still searching for the mast cradle; hoping I overlooked the shiny hunk of metal and bolts the last time around.
On the positive side (because there always is one), I found an old lantern I was looking for and a $20 bill stuffed inside an old running shoe—but not before moving a hairball, or what I thought was a hairball, out of the way and realizing, as I used my bare hand, that it was the thrown-up remains of a mouse my cat had gifted to my shoe.
Misplaced the shoe, too. Not sure where it landed when I threw it, but I’m not going looking for it.
Fort Frances Times
Local News from Across the Rainy River District
