Now, where did I put that?

20 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 that 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’d 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 have misplaced over the years. I come from organized stock and I loath to think that I have a list of misplaced things that is longer than my family tree.

The bag of winter clothes is on that list, along with my electric blanket, and the four ft 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, 4 D-cell batteries I bought last week for the one flashlight that needs them, and 200 ft of LED lights that I use every year on the tree line of my driveway.

(But I know where the “Doritos Cool Ranch” potato chips are--and the dip—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 it was.

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 grownups were watching. Not so.

There he was quietly sitting with us 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 twenty dollar bill stuffed inside an old running shoe—but not before moving a hair ball—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 that 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.