There It Goes, I've Lost It Again

Name me one other person you know who's lost an iron. Can't think of one? Well, I've done it.

In my lifetime, I've lost an iron, a makeup brush, two bras, two plates, a baby book (mine), and a set of drapes.

Not once have I ever lost my keys or my cell phone. Of course, now that I've jinxed myself...

Perhaps it started early, when I was little. I remember Mom searching the house high and low for her good spoons, which I had thoughtfully buried in the back yard, for reasons I can no longer remember. I do remember, though, that they made terrific little shovels for tiny toddler hands.

I don't lose the normal things. I lose weird things. I once lost about 6 pair of underwear that were misfiled in the wrong drawer under some nightgowns. I wondered why I was washing my underclothes so much more frequently. Took me a month before I found them.

I think I know what happened to the two missing plates (Sam got used to the idea of throwing away his paper plates after meals, and we messed up by giving him REAL plates, so...draw your own conclusion. I am sure that somewhere up in Heaven Mom is laughing her butt off - "Serves you right!"). However, I have absolutely no idea, no clue at all, what ever happened to my iron. Note that I did not lose my ironing board...just the iron. Go figure.

Since we've moved we've lost a bunch of DVD's. Not the plastic jackets. Just the DVD's.

Maybe I just have the "Lose Me" aura, because the night before our wedding SM lost my wedding ring. I held off killing him because I wasn't yet his benficiary. Luckily, before a legal ruling was required, he found the ring. All was well. In hindsight, it was probably a providential blessing that he learned so early how much attention a wife pays to her husband's life insurance.

On the flip side, I come across little treasures occasionally that I never even realized I had. When Dad moved from Summerville to NC he invited me to go through some thing that he thought belonged to me, in case I wanted to move them to my house. I took some boxes and went through them only after he moved (a clever strategy, in case he had something really good stashed in there). I found a huge number of old pictures. I found my mother's high school graduation photo. Ah, the days when the only things pierced were ears...kids then looked like adults by the time they were 14. I was struck by how much Sophie looked like Mom. Then I found a picture of Mom when she was just a toddler. She was holding a silver ball, and she wore a small heart locket necklace and a silver bracelet. With a start, I realized that Katherine and I still have that necklace and bracelet. I rifled through some more pictures. There was a small picture of my mom and her twin, Aunt Nancy, in a pram. And then, wonder of wonders, I found a picture of Grandma when she was maybe 8 or 9 years old. I found a picture of what I think was a favorite teacher. It was an old-fashioned sepia print, and the teacher wore her hair high in a bun, with a high-necked blouse and a small round watch pinned to it. The image was a soft oval that faded to nothing towards the edges. It looked like something straight out of "Little House On the Prairie". This teacher would have taught out of a primer. She probably taught more than one grade in a class. America - the world - was a completely different place then.

Then I came across a wedding portrait of people I'd never seen before. I don't have the foggiest idea who they are - there is no note on the back - but this has to be the unhappiest couple I've ever seen. I guess "smile for the birdie" hadn't been invented yet. The bride was, I'm sorry to say, the ugliest thing on two legs (which accounts for the groom's expression) and she looked deeply disapproving of the whole notion of weddings or photographs, maybe both. Bet that honeymoon was a barrel of laughs.

The other day I found some sliced ham in the freezer that I'd forgotten about. When I was sick several weeks ago I found the remote in the pantry. I thought I was hallucinating, but it was real. So I guess for every weird thing I lose, I find something weird, too. It is our Yin and Yang. hahahahaha!