Lost And Found

They say, “Nobody gets through life without losing a few things along the way”. For example, despite having dozens of pairs of reading glasses in a variety of colours and different strengths, I regularly can’t find any. Ken says if he had a dollar for every time I said, “Have you seen my glasses?”, we could pay off the mortgage. So I’m no stranger to losing things every once in a while, but the last few days have been ridiculous, and now I know why there are so many quotations about losing things.

1) “Sometimes the things you’ve lost can be found again in unexpected places.”

It started with the loss of a complete room. A week ago, Kate and her boyfriend were getting ready to leave for a town far away where he’ll be doing a Master’s degree. They planned to get up in the morning and drive most of the day to the room he’d rented in a house with a few other guys. Then she messaged in a panic—he’d received an email from the ‘landlord’ telling him that he’d been replaced and no longer had anywhere to stay. Apparently, it’s a lucrative market and it’s not uncommon for people to get better offers for rent and screw their prospective tenants over. This, with school starting in less than a week. They left in the morning anyway, but instead of moving in, now they were desperately trying to find housing for him. He was able to get shared accommodation for October, but where was he going to live in the meantime? Thankfully, my aunt has a friend who lives in this particular university town, and despite never even considering renting space in her home to a student, she unexpectedly and graciously agreed to put him up for the month, proving yet again that for every sh*tty landlord, there’s also a kind stranger.

2) “Nothing is really lost until your mom can’t find it.”

Next, it was Kate’s turn to pack up and go back to school where she’s studying to be a veterinary technician. I had to go to work, so I left it up to her and Ken. I called at lunch:

Me: Are you on the road yet?
Ken: No.
Me: Why not?
Ken: We can’t find the cat.
Me: What do you mean you ‘can’t find the cat’?! How did you lose the cat?
Ken: We don’t know. But we can’t find her in the house. The back door got left open, so we’ve looked all over outside, and there’s no sign of her.
Me: Okay, I’m sure she’ll turn up. Shake the treat bag, and message me when you leave.

Half an hour later, there was still no message, so I called again:

Me: Did you find the cat?
Ken: No. Kate’s really upset. I don’t know what else to do.
Me: I’m coming home.

Luckily, I work in a place where ‘cat emergency’ is a perfectly fine reason to leave in the middle of the day, so I raced home, white-knuckling the steering wheel, freaking out that she’d gone out the door and was chased by a dog, or got kidnapped, or hit by a car, or something equally awful. I finally got home and found Kate in tears. I immediately got the treat bag and started walking down the hall, shaking it and calling her name in the high-pitched sing-song way she likes, and suddenly Kate called out, “I thought I heard a meow!” I opened the guest room closet door but she wasn’t in there. I couldn’t hear anything, but when I turned, I saw the linen cupboard and remembered that every time I opened it to put towels away, Ilana tried to jump into it. On a whim, I opened the linen cupboard door, and there she was, snuggled up in the blankets, looking sleepy. She gave a tiny mew and jumped out, expecting treats, which I gave her because I was so happy and relieved.

3) “I don’t lose things; I just place things in locations which later elude me”.

Of course, that all took so long that Ken wasn’t able to move her in until the next day, and that night, she came into my room to tell me about another loss. Apparently her boyfriend hadn’t bought a parking pass for school yet, so he parked on a side street near the university. When classes were over, he went to get his car, and he couldn’t find it. Yep, he lost his car. He didn’t know if it had been towed or if he’d just misplaced it, but he’d been wandering the streets for an hour, pressing the lock button on his remote to activate the horn so he could track it down. I really wanted to say, “Tell him to buy a bag of treats and look in the linen cupboard” but I restrained myself. Half an hour later, she yelled down the hall that he’d located it. Exactly where he’d left it.

At the end of the day, it’s true what they say: “Finding lost things is one of life’s greatest pleasures.” Now, where did I put my reading glasses?

This represents approximately one fifth of the glasses I own. I couldn’t find the rest.

51 thoughts on “Lost And Found”

  3. This story was SO much fun. I laughed, I giggled, and I could relate! I once spent an hour looking for my own car in a Walmart parking lot and I miss place my glasses on a daily basis. I’m too blind to see them after I set them down somewhere that I have to recruit my almost 8 year old to help me find them again. 🤪 Thanks for the laughs!

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  4. Your stories remind me of my life, Suzanne. Somehow, we linked our phones to our cars, so we can ask Siri for directions to our cars! Can’t tell you how many times that’s come in handy. Our current problem is “losing our minds” in general. Time for one of those string things so you can hang your reading glasses around your neck. I forget what they’re called. Lol.

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  6. We had a cat who completely disappeared even though there was no way we could find for him to get out, and our other cat was still in the house. We went everywhere calling for him and finally found him curled up on top of a bookshelf. He gave me a look that clearly said, “Would you please be quiet?” I should have thought of the treats. Those might have actually worked.
    Also I’m amazed that I’ve worn glasses as long as I have without ever losing a pair. I have, however, lost many, many pens. Sometimes by tucking them behind my ear.

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    • I’ve never lost a pair of prescription glasses–the readers are just cheap plastic drug store peepers. I lose pens all the time–I’ll use one, put it down, then be damned if I can find it again!

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  7. I once lost a cat, Papi. Called and called. Shook the kibble box — he’s not a treat cat. (Yet.) As my imagination revved up with what had happened to him, I stood in the back door opening and sighed. Then I looked down and discovered him standing beside me, looking out with an expression that asked, “What are we looking at?”

    I don’t lose things any longer but I spend a lot of time putting things in precise locations so I won’t lose them. Cheers, M

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  8. I recall an episode of All Creatures Great and Small where Farnham (?) the senior vet, got upset at Herriot for losing a bit of vet-kit. “When you put something down, create a,” in perfect diction, “mental picture of the item and its location in your mind.”
    Of course, it turned out Farnham had lost three times as many items, and was proven to be forgetful by the same farmer Herriot had attended.
    “Oh, old Farnham? Here’s all the equipment he’s left at me farm…” dumps a box full of shiny metal instruments.

    We had a list on the fridge of all the cat hiding places in order of most likely to be found. Must have been twenty tuck-aways there.

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    • Oh, that’s always been one of my favourite shows! (the old version, not the newer remake). We have a similar list of hiding places–under the bed, behind the bath tub, etc., but she could never get into the linen cupboard before. Now we’ve added it as “unlikely but possible”!

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  9. My problem is having moved there are things in boxes I can’t reach or it is too heavy to lift in the one and only closet in this apartment. I need to replace my printer ink and thought it would be in the box under the printer…of course it isn’t…so I have no idea where it is🙄

    Sent from my iPhone

    >

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  11. I’m so glad Kates boyfriend found a place for this month, what a relief. Poor Llana, but when cats don’t want to be found, they won’t. That’s their cat nature but I’m happy she’s okay. I too have lost two pairs of reading glasses, then seem to find them where I’m sure I didn’t leave them. Which is really weird….🤔

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  13. On the subject of losing cars, the 2nd time I flew back to the UK from Florida I knew exactly where to walk to at Birmingham airport car park because I’d made a mental note before leaving it a week earlier. Unfortunately, the car didn’t get the memo because it wasn’t there. It was early February, frosty and cold, at 8 am and I hadn’t slept much on the plane. And I was grumpily walking up & down a massive car park wishing my sexy black Toyota Celica wasn’t so BLOODY LOW THAT I HAD TO PRACTICALLY WALK INTO THE DAMN THING TO FIND IT.
    Sigh.
    Found it after 20 minutes of cursing and tramping about with a suitcase and frozen fingers.

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  14. The other day, Joe called to me from the sitting room in a panic, saying our cat Poppy was outside. I immediately started searching for her, and after a few seconds, she sauntered past me in her usual slinky way. I never know where she has been as she is the master hider. I turned to tell Joe and found him looking at a cat sitting on the window sill outside who looked so much like Poppy. We left him to continue napping, and of course gave Pops many treats!

    My fave place to lose glasses is definitely on my head…..

    As ever, your blog makes me happy!!!!

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  15. I adore this story! So relatable, losing a car is something we often do as we can’t park outside our flat, we often have to park in different streets each time and trying to remember which street is always a nightmare.

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  18. Nothing induces a state of panic like a lost pet. Nothing. Everything else I lose — car keys and sunglasses, etc. — just makes me angry and frustrated (and liberal with my profanities), but a missing pet causes an immediate panicked sweat!

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  22. I swear, every flat surface in my house has a pair of reading glasses.. So glad you found your cat. Mine did that to me once, stayed hidden all day, then came out when I got home and he heard my voice. Stretched, put his butt in the air, and yawned like he hadn’t been the subject of a search party all day.

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