"Special Places"

Weekend Assignment #329: Lost and Found


Have you ever lost something important (or else just really unusual), only to find it again months or even years later? Were you glad to get it back, or was it no longer worth having by then? Tell us your tale of memorable things lost and found. Alternatively, if you never, ever lost anything important, tell us how you manage this nearly superhuman accomplishment. ;)


Extra Credit: If you could choose one missing item to mysteriously reappear in your home tonight, what would it be and why?

I remember it starting with Kris and Pam on the staff of our high school literary magazine:

“I will put this in a very special place so that I don’t forget it.”

They lost the only copy of a half-decent poem that I wrote. The “special place” method obviously didn’t work, and I adopted it anyway. The next evolution was to ask someone else to watch you putting something in the very special spot so that one of you remembers. Like, “Mom – look at where I am putting the title to my car.” It is twenty years later and I am still putting things in a “special place” so that I don’t forget. And I still shout to the person nearest to me – usually Joy, but sometimes my mother – what I am doing just so there is a witness to my madness.

People, I lose more things to “special places” than in any clutter in my home, office or car.

The title to my car is a decent example, although it didn’t take months to find. I forget why I decided that I needed it, but I had to tear apart my drawers of important papers. I knew I hadn’t thrown it out. I knew I wouldn’t leave it lying around. It had to be in there. I must’ve found a “special spot” for it.

I sure had. It was in a folder labeled (in my mother’s handwriting) “’93 Blazer”. ’93 Blazer being my last car. I had put the title to my current car in a folder that I was not going to throw away, but had no other use for. And apparently, I was just too lazy to make a new folder. Or even a new label. OK, great. I know where it is now. So of course, I put it back in the folder and put the folder back in the drawer for the next time I want to see it.

A few months ago, I lost my key to my office. It is in a pouch with a reusable gift card to the deli in our building. There is actually cash on the thing, too. I lost it during a particularly bad stretch of business travel. I was pretty sure that I left it in one bag or another, but I cannot find it anywhere and I really wish it would turn up now. Just so I can prove that I didn’t really lose it.