I Lost It...I Found It...The Dog Chewed It Up...Expensive Lesson (ugh!)

I am quite famous for losing things.  I have done this forever and YES, it irritates me...but HEY!  what can I do about it?!

Lose, misplace, whatever you want to call it...I do it!  I used to lose pairs of scissors and would just buy another pair because in the big scheme of things a pair of scissors aren't that expensive.  Then, I have lost glasses before and that's understandable, right?  You put them on...you take them off...you lay them down and a month later (after extensive searching for your "favorite" pair of glasses...) you find them!  You are so excited about finding them, it's almost like getting a new present.  But here in the last few weeks, I have "misplaced" some pretty important items.

For those of you who remember the "damaged passport ordeal", you will appreciate this story.  We have traveled a lot since that incident but not out of the country.  Robby, however, was planning on going on a hunting trip to Canada this month, therefore, he had to send his damaged passport back and apply for a new one.  No problem since I insisted he do this WAY in advance in order to avoid any problems.  The new passport came in and I opened it and laid it on the kitchen counter.  At least once a week I would take it out of the envelope and say, "Here's your new passport.  I'm leaving it here so it won't get lost."  This went on for several weeks and then one day, I apparently decided to move the stack of magazines it was sitting with to another location.  And THAT is where the problem began.

It was about two weeks prior to Robby's trip when he asked me where his passport was.  Hmmm..."I took it to your office."  He asked why I would do that and I told him that I guess I just didn't want it to get lost.  He went to his office.  He looked for it.  He called to say that he could not find the passport.  Hmmm..."Well, maybe you just didn't look good enough; I will look when I come down there."  At this point, I was quite confident that it was there and I could find it.  I didn't.  And THAT is when "the search" began!  I looked high and low for DAYS for that passport and had no luck.  At one point I just laid in the floor of my closet and declared that I would tear the entire house apart because I KNEW that it had to be here somewhere.  Still no passport.  Robby finally called New Orleans and made an appointment to go get ANOTHER passport and was set to leave on a Sunday evening for his Monday morning, 8 a.m. appointment there.  We came home from church and he was sitting there talking on the phone to someone and for some reason, I just sat in the windowsill next to the chair and eased over to a side table to look through some knitting magazines.  As I pulled them out, I saw this little envelope between a couple of them.  I opened it...and THERE IT WAS!!! The missing passport.  I was SO excited and as I announced to Robby that I had found it, he admitted that I had actually convinced him that I had taken it to his office and HE had lost it (I'm told I'm good at things like that...).  WHEW!  Another lost misplaced item found.

After the "new passport incident", I decided I was going to change my ways.  I was going to ALWAYS put things in the place where they belong and NEVER again would I have to go through a search like that.  And it worked quite well...for a while.  And then it happened again.  I got busy...got distracted...and lost misplaced something again!  (ugh...)

I had an early appointment with the eye doctor so I jumped up out of the bed and headed into the kitchen to fix my cup of coffee.  No big deal; I do this every day.  Except for the fact that I did not remove the night guard that I wear every night for my TMJ.  Now, I've had this night guard for a couple of years and it was made in Shreveport by a specialist...it cost over $400.  My routine is to ALWAYS take it out upon waking up and place it either on my night stand or in the bathroom.  On this particular morning, I did not do that...and I'm not sure why.  After pouring my coffee, I went back to get the dogs to take them outside.  At that point, I laid that night guard down somewhere.  And when I put it there, I remember in the back of my mind thinking, "Don't do that; you should put it where it belongs."  However, I did not listen to that small, wise voice in the back of my mind.  And THAT caused another "search" to ensue (sigh...will I EVER learn?!).

As I got ready for bed that night I began to look around for my night guard.  I looked on all of the kitchen counters...on the dining room table...in the den...in the pockets of my robe...NO NIGHT GUARD.  I went into the bedroom where Robby was already laying in bed and told him about my dilemma.  He told me to retrace my steps from the morning.  I told him I already had.  He attempted to help me and then asked, "Did you look in the cabinet where the coffee cups are?"  Hmph!!!  "I DIDN'T put it in the cabinet!"  He replied, "Well...You never know."  Although I knew that was true, it wasn't something I wanted to hear.  I climbed into bed, mumbling about how my jaw and ear and neck and head was most likely going to hurt the next morning.  I didn't even sleep well that night because I kept waking up trying to remember where I had put that thing (sigh...).

When I awoke the next morning, after getting my cup of coffee, I began my search again.  I'm funny like that...I just can't let it go when I lose something; it becomes an obsession to find it.  By mid-morning, I had a thought.  Perhaps I had laid it down on the arm of the couch in the living room and it had fallen on the floor.  I looked on the rug and...OH MY GOSH...There it was!!!  I excitedly reached down and picked it up...only to find that one of the doxies had found it first.  And chewed it up (ugh!!!).  Oh well...I was successful ; I had found it.  This had been an expensive lesson.  Maybe I would now learn to put things in their proper place?  Maybe!

                                                   OK, you two...Don't look so innocent.