A mundane question about mundane household mysteries

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Taking a break from global/national issues for a little while…

Yesterday I needed to tape a big envelope closed. I wanted to use wide packing tape. Something like this.

I looked all over my desk and in all the plastic boxes that serve as desk drawers (because my desk is really a dining table and has no drawers). I found the red plastic holder and a roll of tape that did not fit into the holder. I know I have bought this tape multiple times! Where are those rolls? I wound up pulling of pieces of tape from the roll (not easy to find the edge) and cutting them with scissors. They stuck to themselves, and to the desk, and to places that I did not want them to stick to.

But this is the question I want to ask: are there items in your household that no matter how many of them you buy and no matter how careful you are when you buy them to put them someplace that you will remember…and yet, when you need the thing, there are none to be found anywhere.

Except that from time to time when you’re doing something else, you come across the rolls of tape, the metal nail files, the scissors, the metal rulers, the picture hangers, and say to yourself, “Oh, so that’s where they were.” Then the items are absorbed back into the quicksand that is your household and will not be findable the next time you need them.

I’ve lost count of the number of rolls/dispensers of packing tape I have bought over just the three years since I moved to the home. This also applies to small rolls of “invisible” tape that come in their own holders. And refills for the heavy desktop tape dispenser on my desk.

This used to happen with scissors, until I finally bought a whole bunch of scissors. Now you can sit anywhere in my apartment, reach out your hand, and touch a pair of scissors. Also a metal nail file (one of the most useful and functional tools around). Also chapstick or lip emollient of some kind. Also boxes of kleenex. Re the latter, I also keep a handkerchief on me at all times. But I only use my pocket hanky for tears, either crying, laughing, or yawning. Tissues are for nose blowing.

This can happen with condiments, too. Tubes of tomato paste, jars of pickled jalapeno slices, boxes of raisins. Are people sneaking in the house at night and leaving them?

However, you can never have too many batteries on hand and I always have plenty, mostly AAs and AAAs, but other kinds, too. And oddly, I can always find them.

2

Two words: Parallel Universe. That is all

3

Batteries. I swear I have purchased aaas and aas and should have a good stock or them around, also the weirdo ones that go into the garage door opener. But I can never find them when needed. And the even more weirdo ones that go into my digital angle tool. Yannow those little puck shaped dealies that all have slightly different voltages/amperage/bs.

Why can’t those guys get together and come up with a standard for those little round puck batteries?

4

I always find the right tool for the job…almost immediately after I have half-assed it with the wrong tool.

5

Ain’t that the truth. I remember years ago a friend and I put together three fiberboard bookcases when I moved into a new apartment. We didn’t actually have tools so we put them together using butter knives as screwdrivers. It took a really long time.

6

Same here. I swear we had a half-dozen, but when I needed one, I could only find the pair in the kitchen, which was NOT to be used for anything unrelated to cooking.

But when my Mom passed away in 2021, and we cleaned out her room and storage closet, we found four pairs (!) of scissors, all of which I immediately claimed as my own.

Now, I can always find a pair when I need it. (Well, almost always…)

7

Fucking pens. One minute there are five on them on the table, but when I want one they’ve all disappeared. It doesn’t help that the wife is a pen thief. There, I said it! I keep one on my end table to do crosswords and note things down, but when I reach for it. . .GONE! I know that there must be hundreds buried under the mountain of paper she calls a desk. There’s not even room for her keyboard in there!

8

For me, it’s usually right after I bought and used the replacement (thus cannot return said replacement).

Pets are not as “helpful” at times as they think they are. Pens and other small objects tend to become cat toys at feline whim.

9

Garage/shop gloves, generic Mechanix brand style. Kept taking them off, setting them down, leaving, and then when needed again can’t find them. Over time I have acquired 6 or so pairs of different brands/colors.

Now the issue is I will be missing 1 glove out of the pair, like a missing sock. You would think I would take both off at the same time but apparently not, one glove will be on my work bench and the other under my car that I am working on.

10

Grounded plug adapters. And the thing is, if I’m in a store and happen to see some, I grab a few just to have them. But I can never find one when I need it. There are probably dozens of those things in various places around the house by now. Places that are unknown to me.

11

It seems to be nail clippers around here.

It don’t matter the cost. Pricey or some Chinese made cheapy. They go away on little legs, hiding somewhere you’d never search.

I bought a box full of cheapies in the middle of last summer. 36, I think.

Do you think anyone of them can be produced, now?

12

“are there items in your household that no matter how many of them you buy and no matter how careful you are when you buy them to put them someplace that you will remember…and yet, when you need the thing, there are none to be found anywhere.”

Hard rubber mallets. We have at least three of them, but they have a great talent for vanishing when needed.

13

Just follow the trail of clippings.

14

AMEN!

I’m incredibly picky about the pens I like to use: specificly this Pentel model, the BL407. There’s something about it that I’m absolutely in love with: it writes beautifully and with my small Palmer handwriting it produces lines that are clean, even, and despite being a .07mm tip does not produce an overly “fat” line. I have found not a single gel pen that comes close, not even the esteemed Pilot G2.

But. BUT! Despite owning probably half a dozen of these damn things I can never seem to find one. In my bedroom I have a valet box wherein I keep my wallet and keys and watches and SAK and yes, my beloved silver Pentel pen when I’m not actually carrying these things on me. But it seems more often than not when I undress in the evening and put away all my random bits of gear or get myself ready in the morning the pen simply isn’t there. Sometimes I know where I left it: as I type this I know one is in my car. Sometimes I don’t. But even if I know where I left one, the other 5 or 6 I have? No idea. I usually come across it in some random and unexpected place when I’m doing something completely unrelated to needing a pen.

I don’t lose things easily or often but these pens, apparently, don’t like me and have made it their lifelong goal to permanently escape my clutches.

15

My husband has a very, very bad and aggravating habit of borrowing my tools and then just leaving them wherever he is when he finished using them. I have had to make my peace with this, because he isn’t going to change, he doesn’t see what the big deal is, and it’s not worth fighting over. I have one rubber mallet, which I don’t use that often, except when it’s the only tool for the job. It is one of his favorites, so much so that I have taken to hiding it.

My own contribution to the thread is Command strips, you know, the ones that let you hang things on a painted wall without leaving a hole or causing other damage. I used to have a box which I kept stocked with these in different sizes, with appropriate hooks, adding to it as needed. Then I re-organized that part of the house where I kept them and always knew where they were, and now they have disappeared. Seemingly forever. Maybe I didn’t need them as much as I thought, because having lost them, I don’t use them any more.

16

If I’m in a huge hurry to turn the volume down on the TV or Stereo the remotes are always missing. You’d think I just had it how lost could it really be. I’ve found them in odd places.

I’m threatening to get; whatever the “clapper” is/was to turn off lights that could work on A/V, version of tech toy.