Before I went away in August for a few months I hid my big, leather journal somewhere. Now I’m not actually sure why I did that, but that is despite the point.
Now I am home I can’t for the life of me find it anywhere. I have searched every nook and cranny in my room but to no avail. I would not have taken it out of my room, and it certainly isn’t small so it shouldn’t be easy to lose.
It is quite special to me so would really like it back. Any suggestions for finding it?! Have you ever lost something important and still wonder where it is?
When I lose something, the most surefire method I know of for finding it is to buy a new one. I’m not sure if that works with things that you’ve put irreplaceable material into, though.
And it might not be irrelevant, the question of why you hid it. Were you perhaps hiding it from someone?
Stand in the middle of the room and say ‘Minutemen, I know you have my book, but I need it back now. I’m going out of the room now, and when I return, the book needs to be somewhere I can find it. Thank you.’
A friend of mine once misplaced her car keys for three days. She tore her house apart looking for them. Ultimately she found them - in the freezer. She had been on her way out the door with keys in hand and stopped to add ice to her cup of Coke. She put them down inside the freezer, closed the door and the rest is history.
About a year later I got a call from another friend at his wits end because he couldn’t find his keys. Jokingly I suggested he check the freezer. Whaddaya know? There they were!
I lost my passport and looked everywhere for it. I had kept it in a cubby on my huge computer desk, but when I refloored the room, I Freecycled the desk. I had taken all my stuff I had stored there out and put it “someplace safe”.
I looked in the places I had stowed some of my other important stuff, like my college diploma and transcripts, which would be the most likely place. Nope. I finally found it in a jewelry box.
“Someplace safe” now means “someplace I normally would never look”. How annoying. At least I found my passport now, and not when I had to leave for the airport.
They were on a Twilight Zone episode. Not the old, original Twilight Zone with Rod Serling but the newer one that was on several years ago that was in color.
A couple awake to hear people in their house and go downstairs to find men dressed in purple rearranging things. Their supervisor is embarrassed and upset that they are seen by the couple but the supervisor explains. It seems that in the time between minutes of the day, the scene has to be re-set by the purple men. They go outside and he shows them as an example–2 cars approach each other on the street and come close then stop. The purple men hit the front of both cars with hammers, etc. This is “between minutes”. In the next minute, both cars are damaged; they just had an accident…
The man of the house asks if the purple men ever make a mistake. The supervisor admits that, yes, sometimes they do. He said did you ever KNOW you left something somewhere (like keys on a table) and when you come back they are just not there. You walk way and while you are gone the purple men, in between the next minute, correct the mistake and when you look there again, the keys are there.
Ever since I saw that episode, which amused me to no end, when I am looking for something and can’t find it, I walk out of the room and talk out loud to the purple men telling them I need to find such and such and to put it back. WORKS EVERY TIME! NO JOKE!!!
I saw this on the Brady Bunch, Marcia lost her diary only it wasn’t lost, Cindy took it. Oh sure the mentally challanged Cindy denied she stole it and said she merely gave it to some man taking away used books, but we know she was a peter thief plain and simple.
So the moral is if you think you lost something, someone took it, and in the end, for your troubles, Desi Arnaz Jr will visit you :),
Perhaps you actually did take it out of your room. Maybe you told yourself you’d never take it out of there, but then thought of a perfect spot to hide it elsewhere. With time, that memory faded, and all you have left is the idea that you would definitely not hide it outside your room.
I’ve lost things many times, some I’ve never found and can’t for the life of me figure out what happened to them (one is a lovely carved wooden frame, roughly 3 by 2 feet, and it simply VANISHED a few years back! I mean, I remember having it in this house, and assumed it was in a clsoet somewhere, but when I went looking, gone. HOW do you just lose something that big??) Once, I lost a pair of shoes for a week…tore the hosue up looking for them, and finally found them at the bottom of the laundry hamper on washing day. :mad:
Nothing more frustrating to me than not being able to locate something…it will gnaw at me for frickin’ EVER! :smack:
I recently lost a package of yeast I bought to make my Christmas panettone. I looked high and low, all day long. I was babysitting at the time, and I couldn’t go out to get more. I looked in the kitchen, I looked in my room, I looked over and over in the last place I saw it.
I finally found it the day after I made the panettone with some inferior old yeast I had in the fridge. Where did I find it? In the last place I saw it. In plain sight. The package was flipped over backwards, so the characteristic colors and logo I was expecting to see weren’t showing. I was looking right at it, and never saw it.
Not sure if this has a bearing on your problem; unless you could possibly have wrapped it in something or otherwise changed its accustomed appearance?
If you’re determined to find something, stop hopping from random inspiration to inspiration. You know, check under the mattress, then on the top shelf of your closet, then behind the pillows, etc. etc.
Mentally divide your room into cubes approximately a yard on the side, then search each cube in order THOROUGHLY. For example, say your room is 10’ by 12’ by 8’ tall. You have 3 by 4 by 3 ‘cubes’ to search. Start with one wall, and do the bottom row of cubes along that wall. Then do the next row of cubes that sit upon the first. Then the topmost row of cubes. Clearly some cubes will take little searching. Most likely the top row cubes will be either totally empty or only have a few picture frames to look behind. BUT LOOK ANYWAY.
Important: no assumptions! If the legs/seat of a desk chair are in the cube, don’t say “oh, the X can’t be there.” Nope. You must look and/or touch every bit of your cube. So look under the seat cushion, behind a back cushion, underneath the seat of the chair itself. (Hey! That’s right, I taped my passport there for safety.) Only when you’ve checked every ‘space’ within your cube do you move on to the next. Pick up every object, look under it, behind it, inside it. In fact, look AT it, a surprising number of times you won’t be able to find something because of false memories. You THOUGHT you were looking for a yellow hardcover book, when it turns out to be an orange paperback, that sort of thing.
The real advantage of this system is that if you don’t find the whatever, you can be sure it really isn’t there, and you can move on to other rooms instead of having that nagging fear that you simply failed to look at the back of the bottom shelf of that bookcase…
BTW, that’s where I’d look first – the hiding in plain sight method, you know? I often set books I didn’t want found BEHIND the rows of books. Also pick up and open every book that has a dust cover. Putting an innocuous dust cover around what you want not seen is an excellent disguise.
If YOU physically did the act of hiding it, should be no sweat. The information is in your subconscious somewhere. Try to relax, don’t think about trying to find the damn thing, just clear your thoughts and before long the location of the journal should come to you. If you know any self-hypnosis or meditation techniques, try those. Just relax. Since you are the one who put it where it is, your brain knows where it is! It’s just the pressure and frustration of looking for (and not finding) it, probably, that is keeping the information from just surfacing. Best of luck.
My mom taught me this. It’s perfect for the “I KNOW I put it somewhere, but where??”.
Tie a sock around a leg of a chair. Classic white sock. Or black dress sock. Hosiery may work. Any chair. Then wait.
I know. It makes no sense. But it works for the “it’s somewhere”. I think your freaking out mind focuses on the silly sock and then all the sudden, you think “I put it in that jacket I never wear; next to that book; on the shelf over there.”
It doesn’t work for “oops, I think I recycled my car title in the newspaper recycling”.
My mother, a superstitious Catholic would recite the following ejaculation (a short prayer, for those whose minds are in the gutter) to St. Anthony, patron saint of lost things.
Tony, Tony, come around;
What was lost, now is found!
Can’t say I have any studies to cite on its efficacy, but she did it every time…
I mean, I remember having it in this house, and assumed it was in a clsoet somewhere, but when I went looking, gone. HOW do you just lose something that big??) Once, I lost a pair of shoes for a week…tore the hosue up looking for them, and finally found them at the bottom of the laundry hamper on washing day. :mad: