I firmly believe it to be within the confines of my quite small flat/apartment but I have been looking for 2 days solid and I can’t find it. :smack: :smack: :smack:
I need my passport by Wednesday or I loose £100 on non-refundable plane tickets :mad:
Please send positive vibes by whatever method your belief system supports. It might not help me find offending document but it might make me feel better.
I’m guessing that in your kitchen or bedroom, you have a drawer that collects random detritus–stuff that you need/want to keep, but which doesn’t really belong anywhere. Empty the drawer and go through the pile for the passport.
Go through the pockets on your luggage, and on any coats or jackets hanging in your closet.
If you still haven’t found it, check your refrigerator. I have found some of the damnedest things in my fridge.
Never mind the magical thinking. If prayers and such worked, there would be an awful lot more people alive or in better circumstances than there are today.
Walk to one corner of your apartment. Search everything in it, then basically move outward in a back-and-forth diagonal pattern, about one foot apart, searching thoroughly through every pile of papers, drawer, bookshelf, box, and piece of furniture you encounter. Look under, behind, and within the drawers and furniture. Keep going until you’ve covered every square foot of ground in it, or you find the passport. Also, keep explicitly picturing the passport in your head while you’re doing it – not just “front on,” but also what it would look like from behind, from an edge, and open.
This is basically the one-man version of a patterened search, and is the best way I know to overcome search blindness – skipping someplace you “know” that it isn’t, and the really irritating effect of having the desired object in your hand and just spacing it.
If you’re willing to try anything, I’ve got two suggestions.
Stand on the same spot as the last time you remember touching in, and call for it. Pause between calling to give it a chance to answer. This will get the irrational parts of your brain involved and you might remember where you put it.
Deep cleaning. Deep, deep cleaning. You may run across it. You may get tired enough of the cleaning to remember where you put it. This includes opening every box and cupboard and moving every bit of furniture. It includes vacuuming down to the FULL EXTENT of the creases in the furniture.
I once discovered that the couch that I had owned for years had a back crease under the cushions that I could stick my arm into up to the elbow. When I went excavating I found several socks, a hair brush, and an entire set of cold chisels.
I have a place where I normally put my passport + other stuff - not there.
I have a place where I put stuff when I come in and sometimes things get left there for a while by mistake - not there.
I have a place where I keep papers, bank statements etc. Not normally where I would purposefully put my passport but an obvious place to look - not there.
I have been to all those places where I can imagine how the passport could have gotten there - not in those places either.
I am now methodically going through everything as my best bet now is it has got mixed up with something else.
More positive vibes required as my own are running low
I lost a hundred dollar bill FOR A YEAR once, inside my small apartment. It was in the chest pocket of a hideous, yellow plaid, travelling-salesman-type-of-sportcoat. I NEVER EVER wear it. It’s hideous! Of couse I never looked there, because I never ever wear it. Until I was going through the pockets, right before throwing it out.
That’s when I remembered trying it on for A MINUTE AND A HALF, just long enough apparently to absentmindedly put the damn thing in the pocket.
Don’t just look likely, look everywhere! (As many have said.) The “likely” part may not be apparent to you until after you find it.
Not sure I can unequivocally credit doper-vibes for success but many many thanks for those who took the trouble
After 96 hours I finally have my identity back. I had in fact just about given up but decided to turn the whole enterprise into a massive tidy up (threw out at least 10 large trash bags of worthless crud). It had gotten half pushed under a tiny gap at the bottom of a fitted unit.